An Information Society – what’s in it for eU?

By: Migueal Ponce de Leon
In 2003 the European Commission are starting an initiative to revitalize Europe’s research and development fortunes by encouraging public and private players across Europe to upgrade their research effort [1]. Why are they doing this? The European Commission has identified that future economic success will be measured by the simplicity and speed of access to knowledge and information.
In June of 2002 the European Council endorsed an extension to the Information Society roadmap for Europe with a revised strategy. This strategy, the eEurope 2005 Action Plan [2], has the primary intention of steering the European Union towards a dynamic knowledge-based economy, which would improve employment and social cohesion.
The key enablers for this Information Society have been identified as :- modern on-line public services (e-Government, e-Learning and e-Health services), active e-Business environment and most importantly widespread availability of broadband access at competitive prices with a secure information infrastructure.
We have started to see these initiatives being put in place in Ireland with the introduction of cheaper, faster, and more secure Internet, which is in turn faciliating the encouragment of e-Working as being more widely offered and the steady deployment of electronic access to public services.
But in order for us to reach this dynamic knowledge-based economy by 2010, significant research and development must be carried out today. The EC acknowledge this and have shown in an econometric study that an increase in the level of research investment from 1.9% to 3% of GDP (gross domestic product) will create 0.5% additional growth of GDP and 400,000 additional jobs every year after 2010.
The EC have committed to funding one-third of this investment through the public sector, in the form of local, regional and national research programmes, which would include the sixth framework research programme (FP6).
The TSSG are actively participating in these R&D initiatives by addressing the very foundations of the Information Society, the information and communication technologies (ICT) sector. Anyone who has been reading some of our many diverse ICT articles published in this business section will have noticed that we have built up a strong knowledge base. From this we are progressively developing technology platforms, which will help Europe’s society and economy and make the best use of Europe’s intelligence and interaction.
In doing this we have established and continue to strengthen Irish and European links between the ICT industry sector and public research, collectively redirecting public and industry energies towards research and innovation and boosting Ireland’s competitive potential.
The intention of this article is to encourage you to upgrade your research effort, to give you the possibility of participating in this modernization of our economy and society and to provide you with the opportunity to increase the acknowledge capital investment in your company.
[1] http://europa.eu.int/
eur-lex/en/com/cnc/2003/
com2003_0226en01.pdf
[2] http://europa.eu.int/
information_society/eeurope
/news_library/documents
/eeurope2005/
eeurope2005_en.pdf
[3] http://europa.eu.int/
information_society/
programmes/research/
pdf/factsheet.pdf