§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will explain the purpose of the Alvey advanced information technology project.
§ Mr. SainsburyThis is primarily a matter for my right hon. and noble Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
However, the Alvey advanced information technology project is a five-year programme of pre-competitive collaborative research in the technologies of IT between Government, industry and academic institutions. It is funded and managed through the co-operation of the Department of Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Defence and the Science and Engineering Research Council. The four major thrusts of the programme are intelligent knowledge-based systems, software engineering, VLSI (very large-scale integration) and man-machine interface. As these clearly have a relevance to defence systems, MOD has contributed financially and seconded manpower to the programme.