Search Computing

“Who are the strongest European competitors on software ideas? Who is the best doctor to cure insomnia in a nearby hospital? Where can I attend an interesting conference in my field close to a sunny beach?” This information is available on the Web, but no software system can accept such queries nor compute the answer. We hereby propose search computing as a new multi-disciplinary science which will provide the abstractions, foundations, methods, and tools required to answer these and many similar queries. While state-of-art search systems answer generic or domain-specific queries, search computing enables answering questions via a constellation of dynamically selected, cooperating search services. Search computing requires innovation in software principles, languages, interfaces and protocols, as well as contributions from other sciences such as mathematics, operations research, psychology, sociology, economical and legal sciences.