Strategic agenda

The ESI strategic research agenda is designed to address the growing challenges that face our partners and participants by increasing the quality and predictability of high-tech embedded system design and engineering.

The ESI (TNO) strategic research agenda summarizes key directions for future developments in high-tech system design and engineering. It presents our motivations and choices behind research topics and is well-aligned with the Dutch HTSM Roadmap Systems Engineering (2020) (pdf) and the Horizon 2020 roadmap (pdf).

This has been developed in close consultation (with an extensive open innovation network of leading high-tech industries, academic groups and authorities that represent the public interest.

The ESI strategic research agenda focuses on the latest techniques for the design and engineering of high-tech (embedded) systems and applications. The results are intended not only for applications in industry and the advancement of academia but are also highly relevant for societal applications such as mobility, national security and healthcare.

The research agenda addresses a number of key challenges in multi-disciplinary system design and engineering. It emphasizes the fact that the ever-increasing complexity of high-tech system design cannot be dealt with by the current, mainly mono-disciplinary design methods and tools. As a result, a more fundamental basis of embedded systems engineering is required in order to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, quality and costs of the design process.

Top Sector High Tech Systems and Materials (HTSM) unites industry, academia and government in key enabling technologies for grand societal challenges.

The industry in Top Sector HTSM consists of 86,000 enterprises employing 490,000 people, many of them in SME, start-ups and scale-ups. This industry creates 139 billion euros in production value, and 49 billion euros in export. It invests 4 billion euros in R&D annually, of which over 500 million euros in collaborative programs with academia and government, inside and outside the Netherlands.