Structure of the consortium
This project brings together expertise in the economics of innovation, econometrics and modelling, intellectual property law, computer science and telecoms engineering and policy studies. Inputs from all the disciplines will shape especially the innovation survey, which will form the empirical foundation for the project with baseline surveys, continuous monitoring and a tiered (Delphi-like) consultation process with the various constituencies affected by and affecting software patent policy. Unlike many empirical studies which tend to focus on surveying firms, this study will ensure the full participation of all the different groups involved. As called for in the Tender Specifications, this will include large firms as well as SMEs, and the full participation of members of the free/open source community. However, it is well known that questionnaires on IPR issues sent to firms tend to result in responses from (or heavily influenced by) their legal counsel or IPR departments, and not the individuals within the firms actually responsible for innovation. Therefore, this study will also ensure the participation of individual innovators within firms by contacting them through professional associations of IT professionals and engineers from the software, telecoms and related sectors. A major interdisciplinary study of the high quality and academic rigour called for by the tender can only be performed by a team with proven competences:

1. empirical study of innovation and innovative practices
2. economic analysis especially of innovation and technology
3. econometric modelling based on large data sets
4. expertise of international (non-EU) environments
5. legal analysis of IPR especially patents and ICT especially software
6. technical expertise especially in-depth knowledge of the software development process and the formation of innovation in software practices
7. technical expertise of software-related areas such as telecommunications, and the interdependence with software and computer-related innovation
8. policy formation, recommendations and scenario planning
9. access to various constituencies for consultation and data acquisition
10. dissemination to various constituencies including policy-makers
11. management of large projects with rigorous control over research quality

Such criteria cannot be met by a single bidder and this bid builds a consortium of proven experts in their respective fields that combine complementary skills, demonstrably meeting the criteria outlined above.

The project is led by MERIT at the University of Maastricht, which will provide the coordination and management as well as the major part of the economic research. MERIT will be the lead contractor on this bid, and the other partners will be subcontracted by MERIT. In collaboration with the University of Maastricht.s Faculty of Law, the legal component of the study will also be coordinated through MERIT.s institutional framework. As shown by the profile outlines below, MERIT contributes competencies 1-4 and 8-11. With the involvement of the UM Law faculty and well known software patent researcher Reinier Bakels (author of the study for the European Parliament referred to in the Tender Specifications ) competency 5 is also well covered. As to the copyright and patent law aspects of the project Reinier Bakels will be supervised by Willem Grosheide and Jan Brinkhof (both Professors at Utrecht University, Centre of Intellectual Property Law CIER). Renowned economic scholar Bronwyn Hall (Professor at the University of California at Berkeley and Research Associate at the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research) is now appointed at MERIT and will strengthen in particular points 3 and 4, as will CESPRI at the Bocconi University, which has extensive previous experience with large European data sets on patents and innovation. CWI, the Dutch National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science in Amsterdam, one of Europe.s leading institutes of software studies and founding member of the European Research Consortium on Informatics and Mathematics, will lead the technical part of this study and be responsible for all software-related technical aspects (point 6). CWI will be complemented in the study of technical effects in software-related sectors (point 7) by the Chair (Catedra) in .Regulation and Public Policies for Information Society. of the Spanish Association of Telecommunications Engineers (COIT/AEIT) and Telecommunication Engineering School at the Universidad Politicnica de Madrid (UPM).

The CWI and the COIT Chair will provide vital links to professional associations for the purpose of the empirical studies. While access to large firms and even SMEs is available through well known contact databases and the tenderers have considerable previous experience in collecting large-scale empirical data from firms, innovators themselves are much more difficult to reach and have been the subject of few previous empirical studies, leading to biases in results that can have a perceptible effect on policy. CWI.s lead contributor to this study is also President of the European Association for Programming Languages and Systems (EAPLS), a large Europe-wide professional association, and the COIT Chair provides links (obviously) to the Spanish Telecom Engineers (which has provided a letter of support). Engineers and ICT professionals elsewhere in Europe and worldwide will be accessed through COIT.s sister organisations, Federation of Telecommunications Engineers of the European Community (FITCE) and the (globally active) International Telecommunications Society. By demonstrating competency 9 from the above list, this completes the consortium and ensures the ability to perform this study with the highest level of quality and credibility.