ICT Department Project of the National Research Council of Italy 2008

By definition similar, the sector of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is a pervasive area in all applicative domains and this is the reason why it represents one of the most important innovation drivers with a strong production of social and economic value at international level. To draw a strategic line of research and development in the ICT sector means to orientate the resources towards the creation of new qualifying products and technologies able to supply the applicative needs of a wider class of different users, following the paradigm "for every actor, everywhere, at any time, for every service, with every available device", known at international level as ambient intelligence. First of all, it is necessary to recognize that currently the ICT sector is no more the prevalent technical-scientific paradigm (following the model of Thomas Kuhn) as it has been during the '90s. Nowadays, this role is played by the sector of Life Sciences, certainly set on the knowledge frontier and above all within the thematic of particular interest for every human being, i.e. health. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze in depth the strategic lines of research in the ICT sector, by re-shaping its traditional disciplinary lines according to the strategy of the converging technologies (US Academy of Sciences), strategy often well represented by the classic triangle biosciences-infosciences-nanosciences.