At the European Computer Science Summit (ECSS 2010) in Prague a special panel assessed the current situation of the scientific societies, with their strengths and weaknesses and their possible future evolution in "the changing landscape". Aiming to move from vision to action, the panellists from ACM Europe, CEPIS, EAI, ERCIM, EAPLS, EATCS and INFORMATICS EUROPE agreed to move a step forward in the discussion on the actual form, mission and realization of a "strong but low overhead" platform for cooperative activity among the ICST societies.
On March 17, 2011 at CEPIS in Brussels and convened by INFORMATICS EUROPE, the panel reconvened in extended form to discuss the options for an actual format for the cooperative activity among ICST societies and for possible concrete steps towards the creation of a platform that might realize the ideas that have been put forth, e.g as part of the ECSS 2010 Panel and the surveys of the SMART 2009/0061 project. After extensive discussions on the why and how of a platform organization, the panelists agreed that a platform should be formed, in the interest of the organizations present and the ICST field in general. The panel, however, made clear that a series of practical issues needed to be clarified before a platform could be brought to life, and resolved to have the matter studied further before any further definitive decisions.
The panel decided to form a Task Group to study and develop a blueprint for an "open" platform organization for closer contact and cooperation among the Informatics/ICT societies in Europe. The Task Group consists of the following members: V. Baltac (CEPIS), B. Bigalke (EAI), Chr. Choppy (Informatics Europe), K. Jeffery (ERCIM), M. Shapiro (ACM Europe), P. van Roy (EAPLS), and J. van Leeuwen (Informatics Europe and EATCS, moderator). The Task Group has reported to the extended panel in July 2011.
On November 7th 2011 and co-located with the European Computer Science Summit (ECSS 2011) at the Politecnico di Milano, the Extended Panel met again for a final and concluding meeting. In this meeting the Extended Panel decided unanimously to establish the European Forum for ICST as a joint, open platform for further cooperation, as described in the blueprint report.