The European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics or ERCIM has announced a new working group on blockchain technology.

ERCIM said that the working group is a follow-up to its blockchain workshop held in May 2017 in Paris and the special theme of ERCIM News 110 “Blockchain Engineering” held in July 2017. The working group will be led by ERCIM member Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.

The consortium noted that blockchain technology relates to a number of computer science research areas including peer-to-peer networks, distributed systems, cryptography, software life-cycle and security of smart contracts, and standardization of protocols, among others. It said that the working group will examine the establishment of blockchain technology as a field of computer science research in Europe.

According to the official release, the blockchain working group aims to

• “Solidify, nurture and further incubate the fledgling community of European Blockchain technology research already established at ERCIM;
• Foster an “interdisciplinary” exchange between European researchers specialised in the various fields that blockchain technology covers (P2P, cryptography, …);
• Establish a roadmap documenting ongoing research and open research questions in the rapidly moving field of blockchain technology;
• Organize one or more ERCIM workshops on Blockchain technology to support the dissemination of research results;
• Create a community that will be in a position to successfully establish collaborative research projects on a European level;
• Develop, analyse and evaluate Blockchain applications, networks and infrastructures.”

The working group will hold a workshop in Amsterdam in combination with the ERCIM Spring meeting, on May 8-9 2018.