Projects/KDE Research/charter

1 Introduction

1. The KDE project is run by a vibrant worldwide community that continuously develops and implements innovative technologies backed up by scientific research. In practice, research and development are integral aspects of the KDE project.
2. Like most community-driven projects, the research work within KDE is spread over a plethora of projects. Projects are often clustered around particular (key) applications, each involving a small number of key developers.
3. In this complex network of projects, it often goes unnoticed that efforts could be closely aligned with the goals of national and international funding agencies. This is mainly due to the fact that the individual developers lack the necessary knowledge, time and experience to bring the project to the funding agencies' attention, and rather do what they are good in: developing outstanding software.

2 Goals and Vision

1. The purpose of the KDE Research Working Group is to be a focus point for KDE related research.
2. The KDE Research Working Group envisions the KDE project adopting its natural position within various research programmes as open source consortium partner in the leading open innovation networks of the global IT industry.
3. In order to achieve this, KDE Research aims to develop and execute a coherent research strategy for the KDE community based on the community's core values and its core competencies.

3 Strategy

1. The KDE Research Working Group sees collaborative research as an opportunity to distinguish itself as a new type of consortium partner, and to obtain human and financial resources for the KDE project.
2. Therefore, the KDE Research Working Group strategy includes strengthening and extending the relationship of the KDE community with various industry forces.

4 Tasks

The Tasks of the KDE Research Working Group will be as follows:

• Undertaking strategy planning and helping to identify focus areas for KDE related research,
• Collecting, evaluate and plan research projects,
• Matching KDE developers with research partners who will coordinate, (partially) finance and/or participate in the project,
• Setting up and maintaining a supporting infrastructure and organisation
• Providing a supporting coordination platform that assists existing and aspiring researchers by:
  • Creating awareness of funding opportunities,
  • Assessing and tracking funding possibilities,
  • Disseminating funding opportunities within the KDE community,
  • Providing support during funding processes.

4 Organisation

1. The KDE Research Working Group is an official body of the KDE e.V.
2. Within the KDE Research Group the following teams have specific duties:
   • the KDE Research Strategic Team,
   • the KDE Research Support Team,
   • the KDE Research Project Teams.

4.1 KDE Research Strategic Team

1. The responsibilities of the KDE Research Strategic Team are to deal with strategic planning, in order to identify future focus area for KDE Research, and to reuse previous research efforts, and to handle sensitive information, which might be required by some of our partners.
2. The KDE Research Strategic Team will have between three and seven members in order to ease decision taking, and to keep the strategic discussion efficient. The KDE Research Strategic Team decides on accepting new members by vote.
3. Due to some of the sensitive issues, the discussions of this group occurs on the kde-ev-research mailing list which is private. Note that the list is not only for e.V. members but for people who might be of value for the goals stated above and are able to deal with privacy. This team is responsible for communicating with and reporting to funding agencies and KDE e.V.
4. The tasks of the KDE Research Strategic Team are:
   • attending funding agencies conferences presenting funding programs,
   • identifying important research topics, and topics covered by current KDE projects,
   • finding research and industry partners, e.g. through the Corporate Program
   • evaluating research proposals,
   • communicating with KDE e.V. and funding agencies
   • collaborating with other bodies of the KDE community, such as the KDE Marketing Working Group, in particular during report publication and to share information on our projects and partners,
   • strategic communication
5. reporting to the KDE e.V.

4.2 KDE Research Support Team

1. The Research Support Team is responsible for the execution of the research strategy by overviewing and coordinating research activities. Team members are responsible for preparing project proposals and reports, and can participate in projects themselves as well.
2. This team mainly consists of people that help community members by providing information about funding and coordinating the execution of the various activities performed. The KDE Research Strategic Team decides on the members of the KDE Research Support Team.
3. The discussions of this team occurs on the kde-research mailing list which is public.
4. The Research Support Team will make use of the KDE Research Working Group wiki to prepare the proposals. Access to parts of the wiki will be restricted for the sake of confidentiality required by research partners.
5. The tasks of the KDE Research Support Team are:
   • day-to-day coordinating communication with KDE Research Community members
   • writing and proofreading project proposals for the funding agencies,
   • writing and publishing reports on the KDE Research activities,
   • collaborating with the Marketing Working Group, in particular during report publication and to share information on our partners,
   • collaborating with the KDE Marketing Team, in particular during report publication and to promote our projects,
   • iteratively improving the processes and tools required to perform the aforementioned tasks.

4.3 KDE Research Project Teams

1. The Research Project Teams can introduce project ideas for funded collaborative research that can be worked out with the assistance of the Research Support Team.
2. People can apply to join the Project Teams that match their interest. The decision to accept applicants into a Project Team lies with the Project Team itself.
3. The funding-related discussions of this team occurs on the kde-research mailing list which is public, and project details are discussed on a separate project list.
4. The KDE Research Project Teams will also make use of the KDE Research Working Group wiki to prepare the proposals, the project webpage to showcase the research project, and a project database to match project partners.
5. The tasks of the KDE Research Project Teams are:
   • project execution, research and development
   • day-to-day communication with KDE Research Support team
   • generating and working out project ideas for proposals,
   • writing and publishing reports on the KDE Research activities,
   • providing feedback on the processes and tools required for the aforementioned tasks.