The LinguaNet methodology and initiative is presently supported by the European Commission. A 1.5 million ECU grant under the Framework 4 Telematics Applications Programme Language Engineering was awarded in October 1995.
The work and the funding of this project are shared between a consortium of commercial, academic and professional organisations in five countries. The Test-Bed LinguaNet partners are Philips Communications BV in Eindhoven; the Kent County Constabulary (coordinating the work of the other fourteen British and continental forces); Prolingua Ltd., Leuven University, Bordeaux University, Cambridge University (the Judge Institute), and the Copenhagen Business School.
The total estimated budget for the 3 year project which began on October 24th 1995 is ECU 2.4 million. The 'industrial' partners, Philips, Prolingua and the Kent Constabulary are funded at 50% of their full costs and the academic partners at approximately 90% of their 'additional costs'.
The purpose of the current project is to improve the prototype and build the next generation of the system as a demonstrator, install terminals in more countries and extend its message handling capabilities for a broader range of police purposes.
Communications for major incidents which involve both the police and their sister services feature large in the present project. Coastguards, fire and rescue, ambulance and medical response units, as well as local authority emergency planners, are included. This type of extension will improve inter-service communication and will greatly assist in the coordination of multinational responses to environmental hazards and disasters. A system demonstrator showing this type of application will be ready by January 1997.