If you are thinking such things as "if we're not in the
race …" or "it's worth a try …" and other such foolish thoughts,
here are ‘baker’s dozen’ of reasons why they are foolish thoughts and you would
be better devoting your energies to something more productive. I decided to do
exactly this back in August 2014 and I have never looked back, and I was able
to walk away because of experience, knowledge and insights, which lead me now to
highlight the following:
1. Be honest, you and everyone else are primarily interested
in the money so what you will create is a marriage of convenience which is not
the basis for a happy marriage. You might be lucky and find someone who you do
want to work with, but most likely you will be stuck with people and
organisations who take more resources than they need, do very little in return,
and who know little about the matter at hand. You will want a divorce.
2. Do you want to spend your time doing things that, you
know are a waste of time, but some expert reviewing the project once it is up
and running (if you manage to get one through the evaluation process) thinks
that you should be doing, so that he (it is most often a man) can
demonstrate his knowledge and that he is earning his review fee. Chances are he
will not read all those useless paper documents that you will have to spend so
much precious time writing.
3. Writing a proposal for an Innovation Action (IA) or a
Coordination and Support Action (CSA) is very difficult and the chances are you
will not write a very good one. But even if you do …
4. Do you really think that you proposal is going to be
evaluated properly? Quite a delusion that you have! Chances are that it will
not be properly evaluated, for all sorts of reasons: the wrong experts looking
at it; their lack of experience in peer review; their cognitive biases; their
hidden agendas; their misunderstandings that they should not be evaluating
against that which they would wish to see; people who do not know the limits of
their own knowledge, etc. Add to this some very basic yet common mistakes like
experts not understanding the evaluation criteria, and, the sole expert with a
negative view, out-of-step with the others, who, having decided that your
proposal is weak, will drag down the consensus mark so that there is no chance
of the proposal being funded.
5. The possibility that the Commission, a political
organisation, have already decided who will be successful … surely you do not
believe all that nonsense about proposals being fairly evaluated. Topics like
ICT 36 are exactly the type where the Commission is most likely to manipulate
the evaluation. Of course I must make clear here that this never happens!
6 ICT Topic 36 is not research! In fact it has been termed
as “fiddling with technology”, which means that it is based on ‘end-of-pipe
thinking’ where everything is decided, and you just get to look at it, make a few
minor suggestions, and then everyone will dance around saying how marvellous
ICT Topic 36 is. CSAs and IAs will consume your time in activities that are not
research. The best you can hope for is that you might in the process find
something of interest for later use … The fact that research is not wanted says
a lot about the mind-set and level of understanding of the people in DG
CONNECT. Read the descriptions that define what constitutes legitimate activities
for CSAs and IAs, and then compare these with what is expected from a Research
and Innovation Action, and you will understand what I mean.
7. You are unlikely to be involved in any art – more likely
it is design that you will be participating in.
8. If you know anything about past initiatives that bring artists into industry/research projects,
like Welcome Trust’s Sciart, the LA County Arts Museum A&T programme, Xerox
Parc, and so forth, you will know that none of the lessons that can be learned
from these have been incorporated into ICT Topic 36 – you can see this from the
wording. Look carefully for the words that reassure you that there is protection
for the artists and that you will not be exploited and then just discarded. Do
you want to lose the right to use your ideas in any way that you choose?
9. After close to three-and-a-half years of engagement with
artists, DG CONNECT are still caught-up in the same stupid notions of users and
technologists suffering from deficits – this is exactly what they said at the very beginning in
2012. They still also hold to the (just as stupid) notion that special people
called artists have special powers to address these imaginary deficits. They
have learned nothing, which is no surprise for the mind-set from the outset was
that they have nothing to learn, and they knew what art should be used for. Do
you really want to be associated with such ignorant and arrogant people?
10. You can also see from the Call Topic wording that DG
CONNECT are caught-up in the notion of the ‘elitism of art’, with creativity
being the preserve of a few ‘special individuals’ called artists, and they
think too that the ‘art object’ has a ‘special status’ which only people with
money can own – the very things that many contemporary artists reject. They are
the new wealthy patron of the arts!
11. You should know that organisations that appropriate art
for their own agendas also end up imposing on artists, restrictions on artistic
freedom. Surely you do not think you are going to be allowed to do what you
want if it does not fit with DGCONNECTivism?
12 So whatever happened to distributed authorship? STARTS
was put together behind closed-doors, and the infamous study was undertaken by
a chosen few, who must be very special indeed, for they obviously had
discovered the truth. So tell me please the names of the advisory group. We
know a few, from quotes in the report, but who are the people that advised DG
CONNECT? Not exactly the reference model of openness and transparency that the
European Commission are trying to implement through things such as Science 2,
etc.
13 The above is largely directed at people from the art world,
but if you are a technologist you too should also be asking questions whether
you should be engaging in ICT Topic 36. DG CONNECT have classified you as being
one of the uncreative ones, not at all special in the way that artists are.
This is insulting and completely wrong. It demonstrates also the contempt in
which people, such as yourself, are held by this arrogant out-of-touch organisation.
And this they have made very clear at every step of the way towards that which
they decided upon over three years ago. One of the biggest problems that Europe ’s ICT sector faces is an organisation called DG
CONNECT and companies that still want to engage with them. What to do about the
problem that is DG CONNECT?
Our condolences if you find yourself in a position of having
no choice but to apply. Fortunately we did not need to put up with DG CONNECT’s
nonsense and are not interested in obtaining a share of the eight million euro.
And that, as they say, has made all the difference. And what a difference it
turned out to be. What this is however, will only emerge very gradually. Enjoy participating in the various collective delusions, of which
there are many – a new Axial Age, etc. etc. etc.
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