"However, we ask the industry to contribute to not just the funding, we also want them to take part in the projects," says Claes Beckman.
The idea is for activities to be far enough from product research to allow competitors like Ericsson and Nokia to participate in the same project and to make use of the results. Beckman points to the EU research project Frames in which Ericsson, Nokia and Siemens collaborated.
"This resulted in the WCDMA standard, and today the participants have some 70 per cent of that market."
Similarly, Wireless@KTH hopes to contribute to the fourth-generation mobile communications. In order to achieve this goal, the centre intends to adopt a multi-disciplinary approach, including economists as well as behaviourists in the projects. Autumn 2001, the centre will start an international Master Programme and Claes Beckman hopes there will be full engineering training focused on wireless communications a year later.
Gittan Cedervall