S-Cube, the Software Services and Systems Network, will establish an integrated, multidisciplinary, vibrant research community which will enable Europe to lead the software-services revolution, thereby helping shape the software-service based Internet which is the backbone of our future interactive society.   An integration of research expertise and an intense collaboration of researchers in the field of software services and systems are needed to address the following key problems:  

• Research fragmentation: Current research activities are fragmented and each research community (e.g., grid computing or software engineering) concentrates mostly on its own specific techniques, mechanisms and methodologies. As a result the proposed solutions are not aligned with or influenced by activities in related research fields.
• Future Challenges: One challenge, as an example, is to build service-based systems in such a way that they can self-adapt while guaranteeing the expected level of service quality. Such an adaptation can be required due to changes in a system’s environment or in response to predicted and unpredicted problems.