Network-Centric Collaboration and Supporting Frameworks - IFIP TC 5 WG 5.5, Seventh IFIP Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises, 25-27 September 2006, Helsinki, Finland (Hardcover, 2006 ed.)

Collaborative Networks is a fast developing area, as shown by the already large number of diverse real-world implemented cases and the dynamism of its related involved research community. Benefiting from contributions of multiple areas, nameley management, economy, social sciences, law and ethics, etc., the area of Collaborative Networs is being consolidated as a new scientific discipline of its own. On one hand significant steps towards a stronger theoretical foundation for this new discipline are developed and applied in industry and services.

Based on the experiences and lessons learned in many research projects and pilot cases developed during the last decade, a new emphasis is now being put on the development of holistic frameworks, combining business models, conceptual models, governance principles and methods, as well as supporting infrastructures and services. In fact, researching the phase in which the computer and networking technologies provide a good starting basis for the establishment of collaborative platforms, the emphasis is now turning to the understanding of the collaboration promotion mechanisms and CN governance principles. Therefore, issues such as the value systems, trust, performance and benefits distribution are gaining more importance. Encompassing all these developments, the efforts to develp reference models for collaborative networks represent a major challenge in order to provide the foundation for further developments of the CN.

PRO-VE represents a good synthesis of the work in this area, and plays an active role in the promotion of these activities. Being recognized as the most focused scientific and technical conference on CollaborativeNetworks, PRO-VE continues to offer the opportunity for presentation and discussion of both the latest research developments as well as the practical application case studies. Following the vision of IFIP and SOCOLNET, the PRO-VE conference offers a forum for collaboration and knowledge exchange among experts from different regions of the world.