As technologies for the development of new generations of digital business systems have forged ahead new and exiting applications have become feasible. However, along with this potential it has become increasingly clear that very significant challenges remain in balancing new found mechanisms for automation and flexibility against the need for rigorous analysis of possible execution behaviour and the need for business interactions to be underpinned by sound, binding legal agreements.

In order to help bridge this gap, the main aim of the CONTRACT project is to provide new innovative solutions which specifically address the need for sound software and business guarantees in digital business applications. In particular, CONTRACT will build on existing work on software contracts from a wide variety of sources to create new formal models and practical tools for use of dynamic contractual agreements which make it possible to:

1. specify electronic business-to-business interactions in terms of contracts,
2. dynamically establish and manage contracts at runtime in a digital business environment,
3. apply formal verification techniques to collections of contracts in a digital business environment, and,
4. apply monitoring techniques to contract implementation in order to help provide the basis for business confidence in e-Business infrastructures.

Project results will include publicly available sound theoretical models, a reusable contracting language specification, open source software components compatible with leading e-Business environments and tools implementing innovative verification techniques which make it possible to check the properties of contract based business systems both at design time and runtime.