The Information Society: Projects

Semantic interoperability of EHR systems is a crucial prerequisite for enabling patient-centred care and advanced clinical and biomedical research. SemanticHealthNet will develop a scalable and sustainable pan-European organisational and governance process to achieve this objective across healthcare systems and institutions.

A clinical focus on chronic heart failure and cardiovascular prevention in the workplan shall define the semantic resources to be developed. The exemplars in cardiology and public health are specific enough to permit comprehensive development and validation of these resources, and yet typical enough for wider generalisation of the methodology and its governance. SemanticHealthNet will capture the needs articulated by clinicians and public health experts for evidence-based, patient-centred integrated care in these domains.. Existing European consensus in the management of chronic heart failure and cardiovascular prevention will then be integrated in EHR architectures, clinical data structures, terminologies and ontology by leading technical experts.

The consortium comprises more than 40 internationally recognised experts, including from USA and Canada, ensuring a global impact.

empirica had been asked by the Dutch government to carry out research about how supply and demand for people with e-skills will develop in the next five years in the Netherlands according to five scenarios on economic development. The forecasting model used is identical to the one used in the e-Skills Monitor project (www.eskills-monitor.eu) for the European Commission which covered the six largest EU member states and provided overall figures for the entire European Union (EU27 countries). The results for the Netherlands are therefore fully comparable to those of the other EU Member States.

The report can be downloaded here.

The strategic objective of the services to be provided in this study are to support policy-makers in designing policies for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of R&I systems at regional, national and EU-level. In order to fulfil this objective, the study's task is to help policy makers in three ways:

• Identify the funding strategies and reform agendas which have proven successful for raising the efficiency and effectiveness of national R&D systems in different national contexts.
• Identify EU policies and instruments that have clearly contributed to increasing the efficiency of the overall European R&I system and how the synergies between EU and national policies and instruments could be further improved.
• Provide policy recommendations on funding strategies and reforms having the potential to enhance efficiency and effectiveness of R&I systems.

Empirica co-ordinates this study, carried out jointly with Dialogic (Netherlands) and the University of Applied Sciences of North-Western Switzerland.

The aim of this Study is to provide support to the development and implementation of commitment 21 of the Innovation Union, which addresses collaboration and knowledge transfers. The Study comprises three main tasks:

• Task 1: Based on an update and extension of the earlier report on the existing legal regimes on technology transfer in the Member States, investigate the need for, options for and feasibility of an EU policy measure on knowledge transfer.
• Task 2: Based on an analysis of existing model agreements for the transfer of knowledge from higher education institutes performing research and public research organisation to the business sector, and with the assistance of key stakeholders, prepare a set of model agreements which can be used by participants in EU research and innovation funding programmes and beyond; and
• Task 3: Propose measures to strengthen partnerships between academia and business by developing networks and platforms fostering inter alia cooperation between knowledge transfer offices in specific technology sectors and by synthesizing the current discussion about intellectual property markets in Europe.

empirica carries out this study in cooperation with DLA Piper, an international law firm. empirica is in charge of Task 3.

The European Commission considers entrepreneurship and innovation as a key to growth, employment and wellbeing in Europe. However, the Commission sees considerable deficits related to entrepreneurship and innovation in Europe, compared to other regions in the world - notably North America and East Asia.

In recent years, research has widely substantiated the importance of high-growth innovative enterprises (HGIEs) for job creation. The number and share of HGIEs in all enterprises is small, but the number and share of jobs they create is disproportionally large. However, Europe has apparently performed relatively badly in generating HGIEs that quickly become global leaders. Therefore Europe is eager to find effective ways to promote HGIEs.

There is uncertainty about how to best design policy measures to support high-growth innovative enterprises in order to reach the desired impact. This study is designed to provide answers to some of the open questions about HGIEs and policies to foster them.

The SMARTSPACES service will enable public authorities in Europe significantly to improve their management of energy in the buildings they occupy. The implementation of operational services includes 11 pilot sites with more than 550 buildings in 8 countries (UK, FR, DE, IT, ES, NL, TR, RS) with almost 20,000 professionals and staff users and reaching an estimated more than 6,000,000 visitors annually. The consortium, led by public authorities includes global ICT and service providers and distribution network operators working with local consultants and specialist advisors to carry out all steps in the project service implementation process. empirica is responsible for the project coordination and management, requirements analysis and specification, use case and service process model development, service viability assessment and business model and business plan development and several dissemination activities.

The objective of the QUALITY study issued by the European Commission is to develop quality labels for industry-based training and certification which at the same time are compatible with the European Commission 2009 Recommendation on a European Quality Assurance Reference Framework for Vocational Training and Education (EQAVET).

The Directorate General Enterprise and Industry of the European Commission has asked empirica to provide sound, unbiased empirical evidence how the supply and demand for different types of ICT-related skills is evolving in Europe under different socio-economic scenarios. This will allow the European Commission order to prepare for targeted policy initiatives and encourage and facilitate the dialogue and cooperation between policy makers and relevant stakeholders at the EU and national levels about the implications and required actions to be taken to address current as well as anticipated skills gaps and shortages and to help reducing innovation skills shortages, gaps and mismatches in Europe. The study design requires a combination of different data collection techniques, the application of foresight scenario techniques, and statistical modeling of the data for the various scenarios. The work is addressed to the development of foresight scenarios and a forecasting of e-skills demand and supply until 2020 a vision report and the development of a policy roadmap for future action in this area.

The BECA project started in January 2011 and aims to help Europe meet emission targets by achieving a significant reduction of energy consumption in European social housing. Building on existing services providing feedback on energy consumption to social housing tenants, BECA will develop, provide and pilot advanced ICT-based Resource Use Awareness Services (RUAS) and Resource Management Services (RMS). Supported financially by the European Commission under the ICT Policy Support Programme, 18 organisations are cooperating in the project to provide these services directly to social housing tenants. Pilots of BECA services are located at 7 sites in 7 countries:

• Örebro in Sweden,
• Manresa in Spain,
• Darmstadt in Germany,
• Torino in Italy,
• Havirov in the Czech Republic,
• Ruse in Bulgaria, and
• Belgrade in Serbia.

The eSESH project started in March 2010 and addresses the need to reduce energy consumption in European social housing by a very significant amount to meet overall emission reduction targets. 32 partners coordinated by empirica are cooperating in the project to provide ICT-based energy management and energy awareness services directly to social housing tenants. Services will be piloted by more than 5,000 social housing tenants across 10 sites in six European countries.

More information and project website: http://www.esesh.eu/

The purpose of the study is to help set up a monitoring and reporting system and support the monitoring and reporting process to follow up and promote the implementation of the Commission's 2008 Recommendation on the management of intellectual property in knowledge transfer activities and Code of Practice for universities and other public research organisations. The monitoring and reporting system is to build both on implementation by the Member States of the policies and measures they have introduced and on the impact the Recommendation has had on knowledge transfer activities of Public Research Organisations and Universities performing research. The study will conduct a monitoring of the implementation of the above Recommendation, collect information on the individual performance of Public Research Organisations and Universities performing research, analyse the implementation and impact of the Code of Practice and organise workshops of Public Research Organisations performing research, industry and other stakeholders throughout Europe. The project is carried out under the coordination of empirica with MERIT (Maastricht Economic Research INstitute on Innovation and Technology) and FHNW - Fachhochschuls Nordwestschweiz, Hochschule für Wirtschaft in Switzerland.

e-Infrastructures radically change the way research is conducted, overcoming distance to support a growing multitude of virtual research communities across the globe. eResearch2020 conducts research on a diverse sample of e-Infrastructures from around the world, talking to both developers and users. The aim is to improve policy, enhance technology adoption and facilitate the creation of global virtual research communities.
e-Infrastructures can be defined as networked tools, data and resources that support a community of researchers, broadly including all those who participate in and benefit from research. Following this definition, the term e-Infrastructure comprises very heterogeneous projects and institutions within the scientific community. e-Infrastructures include services as diverse as the physical supply of backbone connectivity, single- or multi-purpose grids, supercomputer infrastructure, data grids and repositories, tools for visualization, simulation, data management, storage, analysis and collection, tools for support in relation to methods or analysis, as well as remote access to research instruments and very large research facilities.
Key questions addressed in the study include:

• To what extent do e-Infrastructures contribute to the establishment of global virtual research communities? Do they reduce disadvantages of researchers in peripheral regions and developing countries?
• What are the organisational structures and coordination mechanisms of e-Infrastructures, their key players in the interaction with the researcher communities, the relevant regulatory and policy aspects and the support they receive by funding and other external bodies?
• How well do e-Infrastructure providers define, consult, plan for, engage with and overcome bottlenecks in scaling up to match growth in their user community?
• How do e-Infrastructures ensure that they make an essential contribution to their community of beneficiaries?
• How do researchers use e-Infrastructures? What are the main benefits and costs for global virtual research communities, and to what extent do they influence adoption and use?
• Given current trends, what e-Infrastructure and virtual communities can we expect in the future?
• What policy action can enhance the impact of e-Infrastructures on virtual research communities and how can a Roadmap for European e-Infrastructures be devised?

The study will perform an evaluation of the implementation of the Communication on “e-Skills for the 21st Century”. The main objectives of the service contract are specified as: evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of the implementation of the Communication and the relevance of the EU e-skills agenda, evaluating the results produced so far which will include policies, initiatives and further activities of Member States, other stakeholders (e.g. Industry and especially IT industry, IT associations, employer associations, trade unions, industry associations) and the European Commission ranging from policies and initiatives started and implemented to projects and further activities of different type, evaluating how efficiently the activities have been implemented in terms of organisation, management and interactions with stakeholders, formulating recommendations on how the implementation of a long term e-skills agenda may be improved and/or suggest alternative actions or instruments. The study will cover and address national and European policies, strategies and multi-stakeholder partnerships and further activities on e-skills and digital literacy on the above issues embracing the complete set of e-skills and media competences required in a knowledge-based economy and society. It will include initiatives with respect to formal and industry-based education and deal with the entire spectrum of e-skills which include “ICT user skills” (digital literacy of citizens) and ”ICT practitioner skills”. empirica will be supported by National Correspondents in all 27 EU Member States from the ENIR network (www.enir.org).

The objective of this project are to map and analyse existing websites in Europe which are used as a means for exchange of information and debate on culture, artistic expression and as a space for an exchange of opinions on the European project, with a view to proposing recommendations on how to enhance the use of the internet as a means of information exchange and debate at the European level on cross-sector issues in the field of culture and artistic expression. This is based on what has been set out in the agenda for culture with which the Commission aims at pursuing a structured dialogue with the cultural sector. This should provide a framework for the regular exchange of views and best practices, input into the policy-making process, follow-up and evaluation. The cultural sector is progressively structuring itself and new platforms are emerging. With this mapping study the Commission wants to get an overview of the existing websites in Europe aimed at the exchange of information and debate on the European project between artists of all art disciplines, cultural workers, practitioners, cultural organisation managers, producers, promoters, researchers, journalists, operators in the cultural area, mentors, teachers, art students, distributors, theatres, museums, cultural heritage organisations, etc and the broader public. The study is carried out for the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (European Commission DG Education and Culture) coordinated by empirica with the partners P.A.U. Educationand and IBK Remscheid. Support will be provided through National Correspondents from the ENIR network (www.enir.org) and www.age-culture.net.

The objective of the study is to carry out an analysis of the role of Creativity and Innovation in school curricula. The study aims to review if and how Member States are foreseeing Creativity and Innovation in their educational policies, to what extent they are supporting them and if practices reflect the policy priorities. In a nutshell, the study is supposed to collect evidence and analyse the present state of affairs in the 27 EU Member States on the role of, or lack of, Creativity and Innovation in school curricula and/or learning objectives, at primary and secondary level. The aim of the study is “to provide a better understanding of how Innovation and Creativity are framed within the EU Member States learning objectives and practices of education and training at primary and secondary level.” empirica is cooperating with a network of national partners and subcontractors (including organisations and individual experts) in the countries to be covered by the study, thus ensuring efficient information gathering and content analysis of the documents of relevance in these countries. The experts come from the ENIR – European Network for Information Society Research (www.enir.org), a network established by empirica in 2001. The selection of the relevant documents and the validation of the results from the content analysis will be ensured through the national members of EUN - European Schoolnet, i.e. 31 European Ministries of Education from EU Member States.

The objective of the study is to explore, document and analyse how ICT impacts on the daily lives of citizens of Europe, and on society at large. The analysis should have a time dimension, distinguishing (and/or anticipating) short term impacts from medium to long-term ones. The study should review the individual level effects, on how ICT empowers or exposes users to new opportunities, risks and threats in different areas and more generally impacts on their quality of life.
Core component of the study is a conceptual framework which will synthesize the status quo in theoretical research on the social impact of ICTs. Based on the conceptual framework, the analysis of available insight and empirical evidence on the social impact of ICTs will be carried out along seven domains:
[A] Participation in Policy-Making, [B] Education and Lifelong Learning, [C] Work, [D] Consumption (incl. media and entertainment), [E] Health, [F] Community and family, and [G] Creation and distributed innovation. In addition, an extra horizontal domain will be applied which focuses on an analysis of European developments as compared to international/worldwide trends.

More informations about the Study on the Social Impact of ICT.

The Final Report has now been published on the Commission website
(http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/digital-agenda/links/index_en.htm):

The full version:
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/eeurope/i2010/docs/eda/social_impact_of_ict.pdf

The Executive Summary:
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/eeurope/i2010/docs/eda/social_impact_of_ict_exec_sum.pdf

The overall goal of this study by empirica GmbH (Bonn, Germany) and data information intelligence GmbH (Leipzig, Germany), is to provide statistical insights on the current state of deployment of eHealth across Europe and to define an appropriate longer-term procedure for estimating and assessing the eHealth market and its potential, thereby supporting COCIR (European Coordination Committee of the Radiological, Electromedical and Healthcare IT Industry) and industry in their efforts towards developing the European and global market and realising the benefits of eHealth. The specific objectives are to:

• Identify and collect existing market (research) data which can be used to produce an initial market sizing and 5 years forecasts for the overall eHealth or HC ICT market across Europe.
• Provide a segmentation in terms of products/solutions, geographies and customers.
• Design a comprehensive, consistent research and methodology framework as a fundamental step towards a more comprehensive market research and analysis activity as continuation of this market sizing and forecast exercise, which will evolve over the years to come.

The study aims to cover as many of the 27 EU Member States plus Norway and Iceland as feasible and where such data can be obtained within the temporal and budgetary limitations of the study.

The 18 months study – carried out in partnership with the European Schoolnet - will provide a comparative analysis report detailing the main strategies for the integration of ICT in primary schools in the EU27, Norway, Liechtenstein, and Iceland, their impact and future development perspectives. It will contribute to identifying the main impact on learning and learners, on teachers and teaching, as well as on primary school development plans and strategies. The comparative analysis will also provide evidence on which to base a set of recommendations on the integration of ICT in education. It will particularly identify the main drivers and enablers for effective and efficient use of ICT, allowing proposing recommendations for policy makers and stakeholders taking into account the environmental background (cultural, social, and economic).

This is the second study in a series of three linked studies to develop eHealth benchmarking at European level. The study will cover all 27 EU Member States plus Norway and Iceland as well as Canada and the USA. It will conduct background research and review existing measurement tools and systems for ICT for Health, as well as available eHealth statistics, in order to establish a framework for data compilation and to make progress towards the future establishment of an effective eHealth benchmarking system in Europe, collect the data on an agreed set of eHealth related phenomena from existing sources including professional bodies and regional and national ministries. The study will compile data from existing sources rather than generate original data and – depending on the data availability – provide a measurement for each of the agreed indicators in each country, identify, analyse and report good practice in developing and applying eHealth measurements and benchmarking frameworks for informing policy-making (in all 29+2 countries), and develop and deliver 29(+2) Country Briefs summarising key results for each of the European countries and plus Canada and the USA and make all study results available through a dedicated Online Knowledge Base. Thus this study will significantly enhance the capacity of the i2010 initiative to achieve its goals in relation to monitoring and benchmarking eHealth, a key aspect of information society developments in the old and the New Member States.

The project developed a forecasting of e-Skills demand and supply for the Netherlands. It supplements and is based in its approach on a previous analysis carried out for the EU as a whole and its six largest EU Member States, undertaken in 2009 as a contracted research for the European Commission, DG ENTR as the project "eSkills Monitor". The methodology used here follows the methodology of the earlier study. The Final eSkills Monitor Study Report can be found here: http://www.eskills-monitor.eu/documents/Meskills%20Scenario%20and%20Foresight%20report_final_20091204.pdf and all study results are accessible at: http://www.eskills-monitor.eu/foresight-2/

In this project for Cisco empirica developed Country Briefs on competitiveness, innovation and ICT skills for many European countries in the format of Executive Briefings.

In this project for Cisco empirica developed education statistics and compiled related data for market intelligence purposes relating to all European countries and beyond.

The study launched by the European Commission DG Enterprise and Industry in late 2006 has identified multi-stakeholder partnerships for e-skills development and related policies using a network of National Correspondents from all EU27 Member States as well as Croatia, Iceland, Norway and Turkey. The main objectives of the study are "to benchmark existing policies and initiatives in Europe on multi-stakeholder partnerships in the field of e-skills and to research and recommend appropriate legal, financial and institutional frameworks for the development of scalable and sustainable multi-stakeholder partnerships. Existing regulations and arrangements have been reviewed with a view to identify barriers inhibiting multi-stakeholder partnerships in the field of e-skills as well as successful solutions already implemented, and to promote the dissemination and the adoption of good practices. The policies and partnerships identified have been analysed and evaluated. This resulted in ten good practice case studies, a benchmarking framework, and recommendations for policy action. Findings are actively disseminated by means of a dedicated website, a major stakeholder workshop as well as a brochure to be distributed widely across Europe.
The project covers more than 30 European countries with national correspondents from the ENIR network

This study, carried out by empirica together with DIW (Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung), will

• contribute to proper understanding of the concepts of trust and confidence, the role consumer trust and confidence plays in practice in today's Information Society and how this role relates to consumer protection and to promoting eInclusion;
• explore in detail the main causes and consequences of problems relating to trust and confidence encountered by consumers, and to highlight the potential and need for concrete measures to address these;
• take stock of policy-making at national level across all 32 EU Member States, Acceding and Candidate Countries, and non-EU EEA countries, establishing how EU legislation is being transposed, how recommendations taken into account and what supplementary legislation and other innovative policy measures have been introduced with what impact;
• identify good policy practice at Member State level and regionally, identifying the means by which consumer trust and confidence in the Information Society can effectively and efficiently be fostered;
• document case studies, presenting good practice and other examples of heuristic value in a way which fully supports inspection and learning by other parties who could benefit from the experience of innovators;
• initiate effective transfer of good practice and related know-how between relevant stakeholder groups and across the borders of individual EU/EEA Member States;
• produce a set of recommendations, concrete descriptions of measures which can be introduced at EU level, which are well-tailored to the interests of target groups and relevant stakeholders, specifying the appropriate time horizon for realisation (short-term, medium-term, long-term) in a format which optimally supports know-how transfer in terms, for example, of language, layout and overall look-and-feel of documents.

The study will strongly to support the i2010 initiative, by providing detailed analysis of the origins as well as the impact of any lack of consumer trust and confidence in Information Society products and services.

The European Commission, like the National Science Foundation in the US and other organisations at national level, has funded the development of e-Infrastructures. Some communities in the sciences such as High Energy Physics, Astronomy and Bioinformatics have adopted the e-infrastructures and engaged in e-Science activities, whereas the social sciences and humanities lag behind. The major goal of the AVROSS study was to understand the reasons behind the low level of adoption of e-Infrastructures in the social sciences. Its main aim is to support optimisation of Grid and Géant developments, firstly by providing an analysis and assessment of the current conditions of use and to provide guidance on how e-Infrastructures may be better deployed and exploited, notably by the social sciences and humanities research communities. The study has employed the following empirical methods to meet its objectives: A survey of early adopters and enthusiasts of e-social science served to identify e-social science projects in the four fields included in the stocktaking in Europe and the US and (to some extent) beyond and a list of highly promising approaches to using e-Infrastructures. Data on the identified projects was collected through the web, as well as e-mail and phone queries to the responsible institutions. From the list of highly promising approaches eight cases were selected for the preparation of multiple case studies. These cases were described through interviews with the initiators, providers, and managers. Moreover, their potentials was assessed through small surveys of the user communities which asked for their awareness, as well as the experiences, needs, and barriers in regard to using these particular tools and approaches. Based on the results of the empirical work a set of recommendations was developed and discussed during a workshop with experts from the EU member states and industry.