Time critical applications have very high requirements on network and computing services, in particular on well-tuned software architecture with sophisticated optimisation on data communication. Their development is often customised to dedicated infrastructure, and system performance is difficult to maintain when infrastructure changes. This fatal weakness in existing architecture and software tools causes very high development costs, and makes it difficult to fully utilise the virtualised, programmable and quality-on-demand services provided by networked Clouds to improve the system productivity. The Software Workbench for Interactive, Time Critical and Highly self-adaptive Cloud applications (SWITCH) is a newly funded project by EU H2020 to address this urgent industrial need; it aims at improving the existing development and execution model of time critical applications by introducing a novel conceptual model called application-infrastructure co-programming and control model, in which application QoS/QoE together with the programmability and controllability of Cloud environments can be all included in the complete lifecycle of applications.