Located in Berlin, the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems FOKUS now hasa track record of over 20 years research and development of communication and integration solutions for partners from industry, contract research and public administration in the fields of telecommunications, automotive, eGovernment and software development. The Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems FOKUS researches and develops demand-oriented solutions for partners in industry, contract research and public administration.

• Communication technologies and services and their interoperability

• Architectures and protocols for future communication networks and platforms

• Interactive technologies for individual and community-type applications

• Integration of processes and IT systems in eGovernment

• Measurement and testing of distributed telecommunications systems

• Methods for the automation and optimization of software and systems development in the telecom and automotive sectors.

From the idea to the (pre)product, Fraunhofer FOKUS facilitates innovative processes in enterprises and institutions, - including in such sectors as telecommunications, automotive, eGovernment and software development. Its own solutions and those developed together with partners, are tried, tested and demonstrated in the FOKUS-own wide range of dedicated laboratories.

With more than 20 years experience in research and development, Fraunhofer FOKUS sees its role as an interface between the world of university research and the enterprise sector.

Fraunhofer is the project coordinator and the leader of work packages 4 (Policy Modelling), 7 (Management) and 8 (Dissemination and Exploitation).

Key Personnel: Pierre Allix, Stefan Ballnat, Prof. Dr. Thomas F. Gordon

The Leibniz Center for Law, formerly the Dept. of Computer Science & Law, of the University of Amsterdam started in 1988 and currently employs more than 15 people. It is part of the University’s Faculty of Law and originated from the former department of Social Science Informatics (SWI) of the same university (now “Human-Computer Studies Lab”), with which it maintains strong connections. The Leibniz Center develops intelligent technology to support legal practice both in the private and in the public sector. The Leibniz Center applies Artificial Intelligence techniques to problems in legal theory, legal knowledge management and the field of law in general. In this capacity, it participates in many (inter)national research initiatives and maintains strong ties to the international research community and government agencies. The Leibniz Center has participated in and coordinated numerous national and European (applied) research projects and has coordinated various European Commission sponsored projects including the 6th framework project ESTRELLA, the Leonardo project TRIAS and the eParticipation project SEAL.

The University of Amsterdam is the leader of work package 3 (Argument Mining).

Key Personnel: Prof. dr. T.M. van Engers; Dr. R.G.F. Winkels

The University of Leeds is among the top ten universities for research in the UK and is internationally acknowledged as a centre of excellence in a wide range of academic and professional disciplines. It is the UK's second largest university with over 30,500 students attached to 700 undergraduate and 474 postgraduate degree programmes. The Centre for Digital Citizenship (CdC) is an interdisciplinary research centre based in the Institute of Communication Studies at the University. The Centre is dedicated to researching the changing nature of citizenship and governance in a networked society. In doing this it aims to contribute to the design, development and evaluation of social technologies that have the potential to support public communication and also to question the broad range of theoretical and rhetorical claims made by proponents of digital governance. The Centre has considerable experience in eGovernance research projects. It is currently involved the European Commission funded project - Study and supply of services on the development of eParticipation in the EU. The aim of this study is to produce recommendations that can assist the European Parliament and the European Commission in harnessing the benefits of ITC for better legislation and better decision-making primarily at the European scale, and for enhanced public participation in such processes.

The University of Leeds is the leader of work package 6 (Argument Analysis, Tracking and Visualisation).

Key personnel: Prof. Ann Macintosh, Dr. Neil Benn

The Dept. of Computer Science of the University of Liverpool currently employs some 50 people. It has research groups in Complexity of Algorithms, Logic and Computation, and Agent Systems, and it is within this last group that research on argumentation, AI and Law and e-participation is conducted. Liverpool has great experience in all aspects of the area of argumentation, ranging from investigation of computational properties to applications in the areas of law, e-participation and health advice, and has published prolifically on all these topics for more than fifteen years. All these areas of argumentation are informed by the more general work, both theoretical and practical, carried out in the group, and the Department. The group hosted the inaugural international conference on Computational Models of Argument (COMMA 2006). This group has participated in numerous national and European research projects, and recent projects include several projects on ontologies (Esperonto, Pips Ontogrid and Knowledge Web) and argumentation (ASPIC, ESTRELLA). It also managed Agentlink, a co-ordination activity for Agents research in Europe.

The University of Liverpool is the leader of work package 5 (Structured Consultation Through Argumentation).

Key personnel: Prof. Trevor Bench-Capon, Dr. Katie Atkinson

User Interface Design GmbH (UID), founded in 1998, is one of the leading usability consulting companies in Europe, and with a team of more than 65 experts an experienced partner for challenging and complex usability projects worldwide. UID supports many companies in developing modern, interactive products which are easy to learn, easy to use and motivate users with their attractive appearance. UID’s areas of work cover requirements analysis, context of use analysis as well as evaluation and quality assurance of user interfaces. Furthermore, UID not only develops detailed user interface concepts and optimisations but offers also implementations of these concepts as software components or user interface solutions in a broad range of technologies and market branches.

UID’s employees are highly qualified and have many years of practical experience and lots of personal reference customers. Their range of expertise includes engineering, cognitive psychology, information technology as well as interaction, graphic and media design. Employees of UID work also as course instructors at colleges and universities for topics such as “human factors” and “usability engineering”. They have personal experiences with ISO-standards committee work and are active in several professional associations (e.g. GI, VDMA, UPA, bitcom).

In order to offer international user research studies, an established worldwide network of independent usability companies called the International Usability Partners was set up by UID and their partners. Being up-to-date with research in the field of usability engineering is a high level goal of UID. Prof. Dr. Burmester – professor at the “Hochschule der Medien” in Stuttgart – works for UID as manager for research and innovation. He continuously is updating methods for UID and is triggering the development of tools. UID has participated in research projects funded by the European Commission, such as CONFIDENT (IST-2000-27600) and DEMOS (IST-1999-20530), and in nationally funded research projects, including ARVIKA, INVITE, and Prävention Online. At present, UID is involved in projects that develop tools and services for ambient assisted living (VAALID, Wimi-Care).

The quality of UID’s work has been awarded internationally, e.g. by the iF communication design award 2006. In 2008, UID was awarded the German “Industriepreis for Innovation” for their “user-centred innovation” process.

UID is the leader of WP2 (Argumentation Toolbox Design, Architecture and Integration), supports the acquisition of requirements in WP1 and plays a major role in implementing each of the tools in the argumentation toolbox, in work packages 3 to 6.

Key Personnel: Dr. Joachim Machate, Andreas Selter, Silke Lotterbach

Zebralog
 

Zebralog GmbH & Co KG, located in Berlin and Bonn, provides support services for modern democratic planning and decision-making through the use of interactive media. Zebralog provides all the services required for online dialogues: institutional embedding, marketing, development or adaption of e-participation procedures and technical infrastructure, moderation, and documentation. Zebralog's consultants have strong backgrounds in participatory planning processes, social science and face-to-face moderation. In Germany, Zebralog was one of the first companies to conduct online consultations for various governmental bodies, among them the city governments of Berlin, Cologne, and Frankfurt, the Federal Ministry of Interior (Bundesministerium des Innern), and the Federal Ministry of Transport (Bundesverkehrsministerium). Zebralog has also offered consulting and research services to organizations that plan to stage online dialogues, among them the Federal Parliament of Germany (Bundestag) and the Federal Ministry for Development (Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung). Last but not least, Zebralog is engaged in networking activities to exchange experiences with other dialogue designers, make the opportunity of e-participation better known and work towards standards of excellence. Currently, Zebralog is focusing its creative energy on meeting the challenge of transnational and multi-lingual online dialogues.

Zebralog is the leader of work package 1 (Requirements Analysis and Evaluation).

Key Personnel: Dr. Oliver Märker, Matthias Trénel, Dr. Steffen Albrecht