The Information Society Project Archive

The objective of this study for the European Commission DG Enterprise and Industry therefore is to monitor and understand better the evolution of the supply and demand of e-skills in Europe in order to anticipate change and facilitate dialogue between policy makers at the regional, national and EU level and leading stakeholders to reduce e-skills shortages, gaps and mismatches. The work process consists of two main phases. The first phase will provide a report on “The evolution of the supply and demand of e-skills in Europe” (focusing on ICT practitioners). The second phase will provide a foresight report: “Anticipating the evolution of the supply and demand of e-skills in Europe (2010-2015)”. The collection of the most recent information and statistical data available concerning the supply and demand of e-skills in Europe will be complemented by an assessment of the most recent and important statistical studies and market surveys on the supply and demand of e-skills as well as of the policy debate on this issue in the U.S.A, Japan, India and China. For this purpose, the study will cooperate closely with experts from these countries from the “European Network for Information Society Research” (ENIR). The project results will be published in an overall study report and summarised in a professional brochure. These will be presented at a workshop in late 2009 in Brussels. The core study team comprises two organisations: empirica and IDC Europe.

empirica will carry out an in-depth analysis of the results of the annual Information Society Surveys of households and enterprises carried out by Eurostat and the national statistical institutes over the next two years and relate them to a number of specific themes most likely including - amongst others - digital literacy, inclusion, security including trust and confidence, consumer protection, reorganisation of business processes, virtual companies and new forms of eBusiness, ICT skills. The aim is to address areas beyond simple ICT connectivity and highlight intensity of use and wider impact on individuals, enterprises and communities. The outcome will be a report for each of the agreed 10 themes and a summary report of key findings.

empirica together with TNS Emor, Tallinn (Estonia) as a survey organisation will obtain through teacher and head teacher surveys estimates for the indicator on e-learning "number of pupils per computer with internet connection (broadband/non-broadband)" and relate it to other possible indicators of educational use of ICT in compulsory education (e-learning in schools); secondly, look at how ICT are used in schools and provide a measurement of ICT usage in schools regarding the incorporation of ICT in the curricula and the development of new learning methods; and thirdly, provide an interpretation and analysis of the results in an overall report which will also include a description of the situation in each country and overall conclusions. Accordingly the study will carry out a head teacher survey; construct, in cooperation with DG Information Society and Media and DG Education and Culture, new and innovative indicators which can be used to provide a measurement of ICT usage in schools regarding the incorporation of ICT in the curricula and the development of new learning methods; develop an appropriate questionnaire for surveying these indicators in a European-wide classroom teacher survey; develop an overall analysis report which will also include "fiches" describing the situation in each country, as well as an overall conclusion. The study and surveys will cover all 25 EU Member States plus Norway and Iceland. Thus this study will significantly enhance the capacity of the eEurope and i2010 programmes to achieve their goals in relation to monitoring and benchmarking e-learning, a key aspect of information society developments in the old and the New Member States.
The final report of the study "Benchmarking Access and Use of ICT in European Schools" dated September 2006 which summarises the results of a survey of aroound 20,000 head teacher and classroom teachers in all EU Member States, Norway and Iceland can be downloaded from the i2010 website or on our website
The altogether 27 Country Briefs on "Use of Computers and the internet in Schools in Europe 2006" are made available at the i2010 website.

The issues of funding, mobility and employment of young researchers are important policy priorities for the European Research Area (ERA). This contribution by empirica, FHNW (CH) and University Wolverhampton (UK), WP2 of RESCAR, replicates NetReact methodology in a survey of doctoral students and post-docs in social sciences and engineering.
Given these policy priorities and concerns about career outcomes for new doctoral graduates, the scope and coverage for information collected focusses on average time from graduation to (permanent) employment, sector mobility and international mobility.
The main sampling unit is the research team or group, understood as a group of people, scientists and non-scientists, who work at the same location for a significant period of time to produce new scientific knowledge. In accordance with NetReAct methodology, each team is affiliated to universities in one of 10 European countries: the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the UK.
Internet research was used to create a sample frame by identifying the overall population of teams in these countries and fields. Stratified, random sampling was then used to draw a sample of at least 1,000 teams from each research field. A questionnaire was addressed to heads of research teams addressing overall team structure, recruiting strategies and procedures and the origins and destinations of post-docs and PhD students. Analysis provides details on the pattern of employment of young researchers enabling recommendations to be made in respect of researcher career development.

The study is conducted by Deloitte Business Advisory NV/SA, Belgium, in co-operation with empirica and provides the European Commission and ENISA with an overview of achievements of the EU-25 Member States and the EEA States (European Economic Area) with respect of Council Resolutions (2002/C 43/02 and 2003/C 48/01) to create a culture of network and information security and ensure common approach amongst the Member States. It provides an overview of the measures taken by the different countries to meet the targets of the Council Resolutions and highlights activities that can act as a role model for other EU countries, grouped by class of activity. Furthermore, it provides a catalogue of responsible Key Actors in the field of network & information security in Europe.
Results will be published on http://www.enisa.europa.eu/.

EPRI start is a project that aims at stimulating, increasing, but at the same time qualifying the participation of SMEs from New Member States of the European Union in the IST Programme that is managed by the European Commission’s DG Information Society.
In particular, it aims at establishing a Qualified Partner Pool of several hundred IST oriented SMEs from NMS, qualified by LoIs and concrete project ideas, developing a Certified Partner Pool of 150 qualified IST oriented SME partners from NMS described by Company Fact Sheets developed by a Guide for NMS participants, ensure an overall number of 50-100 project participations from IST oriented SMEs from NMS in the different IST Calls during the lifetime of the project
The process of stimulating and developing SME participation will feed a second, parallel process which involves political decision makers of the target countries and Political Decision makers on the level of European ICT Policy in order to discuss socio-economic impacts of ICT and to prepare and support the discussion of the 7th Framework Programme.
EPRI start aims at the broadest possible coverage by involving partners from all New Member States of the European Union. On the other hand EPRI start works with a clearly specified and realistic focus on the field of SME participation in the IST programme.
The partner consortium includes partners from 11 European countries and is co-ordinated by Teleport Sachsen-Anhalt GmbH. Empirica is a partner.

Development of the methodology report for the above survey carried out by the national statistical institutes in the EU Member States and co-ordinated by EUROSTAT in 2003. Consideration of related survey activities in the new Member States and non-European OECD countries. Recommendations for the design of a repeat survey.

Das Projekt befasst sich mit der nutzerfreundlichen Gestaltung öffentlicher eUSER supports the IST programme to achieve its key objectives to put the user and his/her needs at the centre of IST developments. It provides empirical information on key public eServices domains - eGovernment, eHealth, eLearning - identified as priorities by the European Council and in the eEurope 2005 action plan, and assesses the demand/supply match in these fields.
Various eServices have been implemented at different levels in the European Union which directly address European citizens. Many of these eServices have been designed and implemented with a superficial understanding of the widely differing needs of its target groups. Online public service providers need to improve their ability and readiness to address generic user issues and their domain-specific needs. Only then Europe will achieve the benefits potentially associated with eGovernment, eHealth and eLearning for all its citizens. eUSER addresses generic user-related issues and develops an globally accessible repository of evidence-based knowledge, methods and best practice examples. It pursues an extensive programme of active knowledge translation, transfer and dissemination supported by sophisticated online knowledge dissemination tools. The knowledge base will consolidate both existing knowledge and approaches, and novel data generated by the project through representative population surveys (demand side) in selected old and new Member States, and through comparative analyses of readiness to address user aspects of public eServices in each Member State (supply side). The project will also provide robust benchmarking and prospective analyses that will be of value for the eEurope 2005 action and for EU public administration, public health and education policy.
Over 24months, partners located in four Member States and further ones from Canada will cooperate on these issues. In addition, all other European Union Member States and two Candidate Countries will be covered by national correspondents.
Karsten Gareis: Towards User-centred eGovernment – Understanding Potential Demand for Online Public Services. Paper presented at the TeleCities conference “Urban Impacts of the Information Society: Facts, Fiction and Policies”, March 17-19 2004, The Hague.
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The study is to capture, describe and analyse strategies, patterns, dynamics and impacts of networking in European life science research. The focus is on networking activities between universities and other research teams, whether university or industry-based, and on the capacity of research units in the life sciences to attract doctoral students and post-docs from outside their own geographic area.
The methodology of the study includes:

• a questionnaire-based survey, targeted principally at heads of research units, to collect data on doctoral students, post-docs and collaboration strategy,
• bibliometric analysis, based on publication and citation statistics from the Thomson-ISI database, to assess levels of collaboration and research output,
• webometric analysis, based on hyperlinks published in the internet, to evaluate the position of research institutions in life sciences networks.

The NetReAct project was commissioned by the Joint Research Centre (Seville) of the European Commission. The consortium, led by empirica, consists of the University of Applied Sciences Solothurn Northwestern Switzerland, Steunpunt O&O Statistieken at the Faculty of Economics and Applied Economics of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, and the School of Computing and IT at the University of Wolverhampton, UK.

SIBIS is a European-wide project which was funded within the IST Programme which is part of the 5th Framework Programme of the European Commission. The project duration was from January 2001 to September 2003 and its objective was the development and piloting of new and innovative statistical indicators for benchmarking different phenomena and developments in an Information Society. These indicators were piloted in representative population and establishment surveys in the 15 EU Member States, 10 Acceding and Candidate countries, the US and Switzerland in 2002 and 2003. SIBIS offers a worldwide unique and outstanding data set with up-to-date comparable statistical data on the Information Society in 27 countries. The project results are publicly available via topic reports, Country reports, a statistics pocketbook, highlights documents and a SIBIS eEurope Indicator handbook and can be downloaded from the SIBIS website.

BISER is a European-wide project which was funded within the IST Programme which is part of the 5th Framework Programme of the European Commission. The project duration was from December 2001 to November 2003 and its objective was the development and piloting of new and innovative statistical indicators ("eEurope Regions Indicators") for measuring and benchmarking the status of development of EU regions towards the Information Society. As part of a stock-taking exercise existing statistical indicators from publicly and otherwise available sources were gathered and new indicators relating to relevant policy areas (e.g. enterprise, labour market, health, traffic) defined and operationalised. The data gathering instruments were tested in two large-scale representative surveys of the population and establishments in 28 selected European regions. The results will – amongst others – be used for an analysis of regional disparities in the European Union. An electronic newsletter can be subscribed for the regular information about the project.

Development of the methodology report for the above survey carried out by the national statistical institutes in the EU Member States and co-ordinated by EUROSTAT in 2002. Consideration of related survey activities in the new Member States and non-European OECD countries. Recommendations for the design of a repeat survey.

Development of a theoretical framework for gathering statistical data in the topic areas eSkills and eSecurity or the organisation of future targeted data gathering surveys by the European Commission. Development of questions, questionnaire modules and methodological recommendations for future surveys in this area and a glossary of terms.

STAR is a European-wide project which was funded within the IST Programme which is part of the 5th Framework Programme of the European Commission. The project duration was from September 2000 to December 2003 and its objective was an analysis of the socio-economic impact of new ICT and services on work and the economy. The focus was on the identification of drivers and barriers for economic growth and employment. The STAR consortium includes five renowned research institutions from Italy, France, Greece, the United Kingdom and Germany which published around 50 research and issue reports. Empirica was responsible for the topic "new ways of working", "eBusiness" and "public online administration". All issue reports can be downloaded from the STAR website. Once per year, empirica conducted a survey of the STAR expert forum in which the experts were asked for their opinions relating to specific trends in an Information Society. Summary reports of these surveys can also be downloaded.

Ziel des von der Europäischen Union geförderten internationalen Projektes C.A.P.A.Cities war es, Handlungsempfehlungen und -strategien für die Städte auf dem Weg in die Informationsgesellschaft zu erarbeiten und eventuell notwendige Interventionsinstrumente für Städte zu beschreiben. Hauptauftragnehmer: URBA 2000, Lille (Frankreich)

Aufbau von zeitlich befristeten nationalen Vorhersagezenten zur "Wissensgesellschaft" in Finnland, Griechenland und Deutschland, Erstellung eines Indikatorenberichts zur Wissensgesellschaft in Europa, USA und Japan und Entwicklung von Szenarien für die zukünftige Entwicklung Deutschlands hin zur Wissensgesellschaft bis 2015.

Das Landesbüro "Telematik" (InfoRegio Sachsen - Anhalt) stellte ein zentrales Element in der Umsetzung der Landesinitiative Telematik dar. Sein prinzipielles Anliegen war die landesweite Beförderung und Koordination von Telematikanwendungen und -umsetzungen sowie die Etablierung eines funktionsfähigen Netzwerkes zwischen den involvierten Akteuren im Land Sachsen-Anhalt unter Berücksichtigung überregionaler und internationaler Kooperationen. U.a. erstellte empirica folgende Gutachten:

• Entwicklungsrichtungen in der Medienwirtschaft und entsprechende Profilierungschancen für das Land Sachsen-Anhalt, April 2001,
• Dienst- und Nachfragepotenziale für Breitbandanwendugnen, November 2002

Konzipierung, Durchführung und Begleitung des Wettbewerbs.

Ziel des Projektes war die Erstellung eines Gutachtens, in dem die Potenziale und Perspektiven der Neuen Medien für das Mittelzentrum Ahlen/Westfalen erarbeitet und dargestellt werden sollten. In dem GUtachten wurden die folgenden Aspekte behandelt:

• Bestandsaufnahme von Voraussetzungen und Rahmenbedingungen
• Entwicklung von Ideen bzgl. der Anwendung neuer Medien und Analyse der Potenziale für deren Umsetzung
• Erabreitung von konkreten Konzepten und Perspektiven für deren Umsetzung.

Das Forum Info 2000 hat mit ca. 1000 Verbänden in neun Arbeitgruppen einen nationalen Dialog zu dem Thema zu starten und aktiv daran gearbeitet Multiplikatoren für das Thema zu sensibilisieren und zu motivieren, um Deutschlands Weg in die Informationsgesellschaft zu ebnen.

Ziel des Projektes war es umfassend Auskunft über die Diffusion des Pilotprojekts zu geben, Dabei waren besonders die Motive der Nutzer für die Teilnahme an dem Pilotprojekt zu berücksichtigen sowie generell alle Faktoren, die diese Teilnahme fördernd oder hemmend beeinflusst haben. Eine wichtige Fragestellung bezog sich darüber hinaus auf die Adoption - also die Akzeptanz und die tatsächliche Nutzung - der neuen Medienangebote sowie auf deren "Einbettung" in das alltägliche Medien- und Freizeitverhalten. Schließlich interessierten auch die Bewertungen der Nutzer, d.h. ihre Erwartungen und Erfahrungen beim Umgang mit den neuen Medienangeboten, wobei insbesondere deren Nutzungs- und Preis-Leistungs-Kalküle deutlich werden sollten.