Information Society: if you can measure it, you can govern it
by David Osimo

The Emilia-Romagna Region has recently launched a plan for Information Society: a 3 year investment of 20 Mio per annum, including actions on e-government, e-business, research, e-health and others.

A specific action is devoted to monitoring and benchmarking, carried out by ERVET, Emilia-Romagna Development Agency. Indicators of interest are:

Very few indicators are available, especially at the regional level, relating to Information Society. The policy-maker lacks essential tools for governing IS development in the region, tools essential for understanding a region's strengths and weaknesses, and in measuring the impact of selected investment decisions.

When data are available, it is often difficult to understand their meaning. 30% of households connected to the Internet: is this good or bad? While the real answer could only come in the long term, comparing data between regions could add substantial meaning to those data. We don't know the perfect penetration rate of Internet in household, but if we know that EU average is 35%, that the most competitive regions attain 60% already, that accession countries reach 20%, the regional government can better understand its own situation and act accordingly.

The comparability of the data lies not only in the homogeneous operational definition of the indicators, but in the homogeneity of methodologies used across different regions. What is striking now is that many regions are working on IS indicators, but in a fragmented way, without any coordination. Emilia-Romagna has therefore tried to define indicators taking into account both regional priorities and comparison possibilities. The main points of reference for comparability at the national level are eEurope and OECD.

BISER is the only source for comparable data on Information Society at the regional level. By choosing the same indicators and methodology as BISER, we ensure that our own research is immediately comparable with 28 other EU regions: enormously increasing the value of our data. ERVET and Emilia-Romagna have adopted a slightly different methodology, but we have made sure that comparison is still possible on essential indicators. We aim to continue to cooperate and develop our relationship with the BISER project in the coming months.

Beside this work on data, Emilia-Romagna has launched a high-level collaboration between regions, in cooperation with ERISA. At the moment there is an active network of 21 regions. Work has started in January 2003, and is already well under way, via meetings and web-based cooperation. Current cooperation includes:

• mapping data availability, exchanging data and methodologies
• defining common indicators for the future
• formalizing a cooperation agreement

At the moment, work is completely self-financed, but EU funding is sought for the future as IS regional indicators are also a priority for the European Commission. Regions interested in cooperation can contact:

David Osimo
ERVET - Emilia-Romagna Development Agency
deo@ervet.it
+39-051.6450414

ICT and E-Work in European SME's
by Patrizio di Nicola, E-Gap project

Telework, like other teleactivities which combine a new work organization, new information and communication technologies, new values and behaviours among managers and staff, gives rise to hopes and reluctances. To maintain or to improve their competitiveness in the knowledge economy, SMEs face the challenge to adopt new working methods, review their work processes and adapt existing skills to new usages based on a growing use of ICT. This is the reason why e-GAP, an ongoing project in the IST programme, ran five parallel surveys in selected regions in Finland, France, Italy, Hungary and the UK (plus a comparative investigation in Japan), looking for factors that might influence the management of SMEs to move towards new methods of work like e-Work. Specifically, e-Work has been taken as the criterion to measure and understand the reasons that influence the management decision process to accept and adopt new working methods.

Understanding and clearly identifying why SMEs do often hesitate to participate in the Knowledge Economy would enable the EU to recommend a practical process to the management of those firms.

The study carried out by the e-GAP project was both qualitative and quantitative. It did not look for precise quantitative comparisons, but set in perspective various experiments in their environments and according to the meanings given by their protagonists. Such a study should highlight some of the best ways for the appropriation of new technologies and the overcoming of major barriers or inhibitors to their usage.

In order to explore the two above-mentioned levels, three types of investigation have been used:

• Data collection and classification about the political, legal, social and financial environment of telework and e-work at the context level.
• A quantitative and representative survey of SMEs in a significant socio-economical area, at the actors level, with a sample of about 300 establishments in each of the participating countries, using a questionnaire and computer-aided telephone interviews. Quotas of establishments weighted by economical sectors ensured that the results have not been dominated by specific branches (such as the IT sector).
• In-depth interviews with various selected persons in enterprises, according to a significant sample: workers, managers, executives, trade unions (actors level). About 60 people per country will undergo semi-directive in-depth interviews.

The first results confirm that in the diffusion of telework, there are visible differences among the countries participating in the e-GAP project. For instance, Finland has the well-known "best position" in the fast developing digital economy, which is well reflected in the diffusion rate of telework, too. In this country about every eighth worker is a teleworker (12.4%). Hungary is at the opposite end, with a rate of teleworkers below 1% of the working population.

Micro-firms (with less then 10 employees) represent the dominant size category of companies operating in all of the regions surveyed. Due to their core role, in analysing various dimensions of the local environment from the point of view of telework penetration (e.g. regulatory framework, technological environment, etc.), particular attention was paid to the situation of micro-firms.

The ICT environment is one of the key preconditions for developing telework. In this respect there were considerable differences between the regions investigated. We may say that the Finnish companies are in the best position, followed by British, French and Italian firms with Hungary being the last one, with the exception of "having an own web site". Looking at the size-effect, it is well known that large firms have better ICT provision rates than the micro- and small firms. However, when small firms have opportunities to use ICT, they exploit it as much or even more intensively than the large ones. This indicates that the relative "ICT absorption capacity" of small firms is stronger than that of the large companies.

More information can be accessed at the project website

Facilitating the practical take-up of new ways of flexible working in outlying
or technologically disadvantaged regions
by the FlexWork project team

The FlexWork project aims to support the practical take-up of new ways of flexible working by Small to Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) , particularly those in remote regions. 'Flexible working' refers to styles of of work that exploit the flexibility offered by using information and communication technology (ICT), i.e. personal flexibility (organise of work to fit in with other aspects of life), professional flexibility (meet work demands in ways that better fit your professional objectives) and organisational flexibility (organise labour resources to meet varying demand). ICTs free companies and employees from working at a fixed time and place. Now companies can adopt innovative strategies for better productivity and improved working conditions. There are many types of flexible working. The most common examples are home workers, job sharing, virtual companies and mobile workers.

Benefits of flexible working

Flexible working can benefit companies and individuals by improving competitiveness, productivity and working conditions, but requires that we consider new types of work, new ways of performing and new approaches to organisation. In the context of BISER, the benefits of flexible working for the region are of great interest.

Benefits for the region: Business activities can be located or conducted anywhere. Traditionally, physical access was the primary factor. Flexibility through ICT means other factors are more important such as cheaper labour, high amenity and environmental values, high quality of life, relatively cheap land property and services, etc.. Regional agencies responsible for development have new advantages to manipulate because they are accessible via technology. The Internet, and other forms of IT networking, provides inexpensive forms of interaction, for example:

• access to much of the information and knowledge used by large companies
• marketing mechanisms and channels which reach out on a global basis
• teleworking and flexible working generally.

SMEs cannot easily achieve economies of scale or get rapid access to skills, capital and knowledge. Forming ICT-based collaboration networks with other SMEs can allow them to compete. Typical benefits for a region can include:

Allowing employees to work remotely can increase job opportunities. Those who would find it difficult to commute due to transport difficulties or not having the time, can attend a regional telecentre or work from home. The pool of potential employees is increased and the region benefits from greater employment opportunities.

SMEs and micro-businesses can take on work from companies in other regions, so boosting the local economy.

SMEs can work together to bid for large contracts from outside the region, and even for new kinds of work so boosting the economy and increasing local skills and competence.

Find out more in the FlexWork Handbook, which together with a great number of tools that aim to support the promotion of flexible working in remote regions, at the project website

IANIS- Innovative Actions Network for the Information Society
by Sonja Müller

IANIS is co-ordinated by the European Regional Information Society Association (Eris@) and provides a platform for the exchange of expertise, experience and good practice between 28 regions in 10 EU-member states and four private sector partners seeking to collaborate in promoting more innovative uses of their Structural Funds and accelerated deployment of the regional information society. IANIS has been created to serve the regions and their Innovative Actions. Saxony is the Lead region of this programme that started on 1st October 2002 and runs for two years. The participating regions are Wallonia, Brandenburg, Bremen, Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Andalucia, Asturias, Castilla la Mancha, Extremadura, Aquitaine, Nord pas de Calais, North Karelia, South West Finland, Uusimaa, West Finland, Central Macedonia, Calabria, Piemonte, Valle d'Aoste, Alentejo, Blekinge, Vasterbotten, East Midlands (UK), North West England, South West England, Wales and Yorkshire & the Humberside. However, IANIS seeks to stay open for other regions that want to get involved.

IANIS has two main objectives:

• To sustain and further develop interregional networking, and particularly to provide network support to regions with approved Innovative Actions projects, in the context of the information society and Structural Funds' investments. It aims to support widespread sharing of information, experience and good practice through an electronic communications platform, physical and virtual newsletters, workshops, seminars, annual conferences and policy fora and a study visits exchange scheme. As a part of the strategy for dissemination and exchange of experience through IANIS, the eris@ website will be re-designed and developed as the main communications platform. The aim is to make the eris@ a main portal for those responsible for (or interested in) information society at the regional level.
• To design, develop, maintain, and provide access to an e-Region Hub with a projects' database and with links to other materials and reports of relevance to regional information society developers working in the context of the Structural Funds.
• IANIS is collaborating with two networks since the themes of Innovative Actions are closely related and all three are critical to regional development. The first one is the Sustainable Development Network (lead region is Wales) and the second one is the Technology Innovation Network (lead region is Emilia-Romagna). The first IANIS conference will take place in Bordeaux on 5-6th June 2003.

The IANIS Newsletter 1 is available online

The new regional agenda-evolving practice and policy
by Jeremy Millard

According to the European Commission, there are striking differences in economic performance between different parts of Europe, particularly between the central and peripheral regions. As the economic position of countries converges, the divergences tend to be located increasingly within individual countries rather than between them. For example, there is a clearly delineated core super-region within Europe, whether measured in terms of employment, GDP, research expenditure, etc., which stretches as a band from north-west Italy through the south and south-west of Germany, up the Rhine/Ruhr west German corridor, into Flanders, Belgium, southern and central Netherlands, to south-east England and the Ile de France. The Digital Europe project (http://www.digital-eu.org) calls this the 'blue banana' super-region and their research concluded that, measured at the national scale, ICT adoption has tended to weaken this core.

At the sub-national scale, however, they found a clustering effect associated with the digital economy and the adoption of ICT which is stronger than that seen with traditional economic activities, although this is often better explained by industry characteristics, such as skill intensity, than purely ICT intensity. At the sub-national level, this clustering, or concentration processes, seem often to be driven by both the demand and supply sides simultaneously. On the demand side, positive externalities for information flows and inter business exchanges are gained in larger markets, where the intensity of networks of exchanges also reduces the effects of risk from shocks. From a policy perspective, there is also an important supply-side to the concentration process, including the role of education and labour skills, land and site availability and the supply of innovation, new knowledge and finance. Supply-side effects also result from institutional structures, which are also strongly influenced by the wider state-administrative apparatus: competition law, regulatory structures and compliance frameworks. Some proponents of the new, and specifically the digital, economy paradigm have argued that the importance of urban centres as primary business locations is being challenged by the growth of company downsizing and decentralisation, outsourcing and a greater role for SMEs in the economy. These developments have, it is postulated, allowed a more flexible and footloose pattern of location for may types of businesses, and the contention is made by some that ICT actually leads to the death of distance'. Others, however, see new or adapted types of both spatial centralisation and decentralisation taking place, with the former often dominant over the latter. This would help to explain some of the increasing divergence in Europe's regional map. Thus, despite the apparent potential for economic decentralisation riding on the back of ICT adoption, most empirical research is pointing strongly the other way. Hence, proximity to major urban centres continues to be significant even if location within them may be less important. New agglomeration economies are apparent, suggesting that there is a continual concentration on existing major centres, especially for high value added activities (e.g. specialised business and financial services, R&D, media). A clear strand in many research findings is that, although there is some decentralisation of economic activity this tends to be restricted to either the edge of the core or, if to more peripheral regions, to activities involving lower or medium added value in manufacturing or more routine activities. It does not seem that specific sectors are being moved around in the new economy. Rather, a new type of spatial sorting seems to be taking place which is, to some extend, dependent on the type of knowledge created and exploited i a given activity, for example as seen along the tacit to explicit knowledge spectrum.

The above research and policy strands and contradictions illustrate the fact that the new economy/the information society involves the shift to a new type of socio-economic system which as yet we are at a loss to understand within a regional governance context. There is now at least a ten-year history of regional planners and policy makers attempting to make use of ICT to enhance the socio-economic development of regions, and to use new and knowledge economy concepts as a basis for regional policy making and implementation. As pointed out above, much recent research points to new or adapted processes of both spatial concentration and spatial deconcentration. Part of the new regional agenda should be to examine this contention, and to attempt to unravel the causes, paths and interrelationships of these two processes.

Read a long version of this article here.

RETINE- REgional Typology of Innovation NEeds
by Sonja Müller

BISER wants to draw attention to research that has been undertaken a couple of years ago already, but which has nevetheless proven of very high value to the analysis (carried out as part of the BISER project) of regional development in the Information Society. The RETINE project (finished in 2001) was a co-operative project of the Fraunhofer Institute Systemtechnik und Innovationsforschung (Fraunhofer Institute System Technology and Innovation Research) and BETA (Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée) prosecuting three main objectives:

• to provide a résumé of current theoretical reflections dealing with regional development, innovation-related needs and policy support,
• to provide measurement tools and statistical procedures which improve existing methodologies, allowing the establishment of a regional typology of innovation needs and the identification of groups of European regions,
• to gain lessons from former experiences for the establishment of future RTD priorities, ensuring a better match between innovation needs and regional policy support.

As a consequence, the reflection involved discussions concerning the establishment of the European Research Areas (ERA). Most of the European regions have developed policies and institutions for supporting innovation, technology transfer etc. These institutional sets constitute the regional context that has to be kept in mind when it comes to the design of any new policy device. However, apart from such a variety of situations, some comprehensive tendencies can be observed. Starting from policies devoted to directly strengthening innovation behaviour (supporting firms' R&D activities etc.), the new priorities seem to focus on indirect measures like improving absorptive capacities; systematising co-operation between firms and public research; supporting innovative business services in the proximity of the firms and regrouping firms in strategic networks.

The empirical analysis of the RETINE project was based on information gathered within the framework of the European Regional Innovation Survey (ERIS) in order to establish a typology of firms' innovation-related needs. ERIS was conducted by a multidisciplinary research team of economic geographers and regional economists from five different research institutions in Germany, supported by research counterparts in Austria, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. As a result, ERIS covered 10 regions within the European Union (Alsace, Baden, Gironde, Lower Saxony, Saxony, South Holland, South Wales and the metropolitan regions of Barcelona, Stockholm and Vienna). By means of multivariate analyses, a typology establishing three main groups of regions was arrived at. This typology allows the characterisation of firms' needs within the innovation process, the perception of the (regional) environment by manufacturing and business service firms, and the identification of linkages between the types of firms' needs and the type of regional environment. In addition, in-depth field research, based on personal interviews, performed in different regions aims at highlighting regional "good practices" and policies.

Major indications for policies to be gained from the project can be summarised as follows:

• To support the reinforcement of means and techniques devoted to the identification and analysis of firms' innovation-related need at regional level.
• To favour the development of a regional 'policy evaluation culture', more generally to foster 'regional intelligence'.
• To implement, in the framework of ERA, accompanying measures addressed specifically to the following target groups: (a) less-favoured regions; (b) small firms and (c) non-manufacturing firms.

The RETINE Final Report is available online

Workshop of the NESIS Project in Milan
by Ivica Milicevic

New Economy Statistical Information System (NESIS) is an Accompanying Measure to the Information Society and Technology research program (IST-CPA8, under the supervision of DG ESTAT). The workshop held on 26-27 of February 2003 was titled 'The regional effects of the New Information Economy: Towards a revision of regional disparities'. The main goals were to identify and discuss the most relevant methodological issues concerning the definition and the measurement of regional disparities.

The Workshop's Programme included invited speakers and is extended to a selection of contributions, focussing on both methodological and the empirical side of the issue (such as: the choice of indicators, the area unit problem, etc and was not confined to purely theoretical agenda). The Biser project was represented by Work Research Centre (the conference paper co-authored by Karsten Gareis and Ivica Milicevic).

Key presentations and conclusions

At the outset, it has to be acknowledged that selecting key presentations is extremely challenging. Thus the scope was quite wide and many issues were covered. For example, regarding their content, the presentations varied from [focusing on] theoretical econometric modelling to qualitatively based methods of cognitive perceptions deemed relevant for ICT indicators. Taking the Biser prospective, however, one could perhaps select those most relevant from the consortium point of view. These would then be:

• Measuring the digital divide in Europe - questions of purpose, method and scale (Andrew Gillespie, the main message being that the more 'local' we can descend - e.g. in terms of research methodology - the more accurate picture we shall get regarding both ICT endowment and use).
• A regional perspective on the digital divide: a story of cream skimming and cherry picking ( Jan Steyaert, the main messages being that market induced changes have repercussions on primarily service provisions/offerings at the regional and even more so, local level).
• About possible effects of teleworking on travel behaviour and regional dynamics (Thomas de Graaf) and Digital workplace and Firm Organisation- teleworking in three Italian Regions (Patrizio di Nicola), both highlighting some relevant issues regarding teleworking
• Measuring the digital divide: a framework for the analysis of cross-countries and regional differences ( Andrea Ordanini, attempting to put forward a novel digital divide model, combining cluster and factor analysis and econometric analysis, which however was not without critics), and
• The role of knowledge, learning and technology (Christian De Neef, raising many relevant questions regarding SMEs access and utilisation of New Economy advantages).

As a summary , two main concluding remarks can be put forward:

Firstly, there is a need for regional indicators, both from the policy makers perspective, but also from the perspective of research community, and while a lot of work has been done ( the contribution of the EC and associated institutions has been acknowledged), a lot of work in this area is yet to be done.
Secondly, in terms of indicators required, two issues seem to be most relevant:

• The need to capture the effect (and effectiveness) of ICTs , rather then just ICT endowment at regional level .
• The increasing focus and emphasis on the search for synthetic/composite indicators. This issue was mainly highlighted by the research community and partners participating in the NESIS project. It has to be mentioned that for some, this type of indicators would amount to producing direct inputs for regional modelling, while for the others these indicators would be sufficient as a 'standalone' indices. However, the desirable properties in each case would include causality issues.

The NESIS website can be found here

Reinventing Regions in the Global Economy - Regional Studies Association International
Conference in Pisa (12-15 April 2003)
by Sonja Müller and Karsten Gareis

The Regional Studies Association was established in 1965 to provide a forum for the debate of regional development, policy and research. In its early days the Association was primarily interested in the UK experience but this subsequently widened to include a specific USA focus and now a strong interest in European and wider experiences. The conference in Pisa was the tenth international conference organised by the Association (for future events see 'Forthcoming Key Events on Regions and the Information Society'). It highlighted the options for regions in the new global economy concerning the challenges posed by enlargement, by restructuring processes in old industrial areas within the EU, and by the knowledge economy.

The BISER project was presented as part of the "regional competitiveness"-stream, which was one of twelve so-called gateways of the conference.

The following four presentations were of special interest for the BISER project:

Ron Martin and Peter Tyler (Department of Geography and Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, England) presented a paper about conceptualising and operationalising regional competitiveness: "Regional competitiveness: an elusive concept". They argue that the inflationary use of the term "competitiveness" in regional policy debates stands in stark contrast to the lack of consensus among research strands about whether regions can actually be competitive, and what this means for future research and policy-making.

Grete Rusten (Institute for Research in Economics and Business Administration) and James Cornford (University of Newcastle upon Tyne Business School) reported on "Web-Site strategies and performance in SMEs: performance indicators and regional challenges". In their paper they stress the differences in obstacles to utilising ICT which exist between companies at different types of locations, by focusing on the web strategies of SMEs. By including the territorial dimension, the paper moves beyond the limits of the individual firm and explores how business performance related to web-strategies is tied to the presence and absence of appropriate culture and spatial conditions in general, and to rural location in particular. The authors discussed how business performance related to web-strategies is tied to the presence and absence of appropriate culture and spatial conditions in general, and to rural location in particular.

Lydia Greunz (Free University of Brussels) spoke about innovation in European regions: specialisation, diversity and competition. In her paper she investigated knowledge externalities (which can be raised by both specialisation and diversity) within and between European NUTS II regions by introducing a series of alternative measures of specialisation, diversification and competition based on technological indicators.

Ben Gardiner (Cambridge Econometrics) reported in his presentation "Regional competitiveness indicators for Europe- audit, database construction and analysis" on existing data and how to construct a comprehensive set of regional competitiveness indicators from them. His presentation drew on the results of two projects for the European Commission looking into factors affecting regional competitiveness, which will in turn feed into the 2003 Cohesion Report. First main findings of the ongoing investigation were: 1) A review of data availability suggested a limited number of indicators available, both across regions and time, but sufficient indicators were available to measure productivity by 15 sectors across NUTS2 regions over 1980-2001, and to identify a selection of knowledge-based proxies, 2) Analysis of the components of GDP per capita revealed a strong association between average levels of productivity and the employment rate with different groupings of GDP per capita, 3) Decomposition of regional productivity data showed that the majority of successful regions were supported by large contributions from market services.

Further information on the conference and full papers can be found on the Regional Studies Association website: http://www.regional-studies-assoc.ac.uk/events/pisa.html

Forthcoming Key Events on Regions and the Information Society
by Sonja Müller

These are some forthcoming events which have a focus on regional development in the Information Society:

• Conference "Strategies for e-Government and e-Business by Less Favoured Regions in European Research" in Madeira (12-13 May 2003), http://www.prelude-portal.org/

• Seminar "Information Society as a tool for regional development: exchange of best practices at European level in Salerno (15-16 May 2003), http://www.campaniasi.it

• IANIS Annual Conference "The Information Society- A tool for Sustainable Regional Development?" in Bordeaux, organised by IANIS (5-6 June 2003), http://www.erisa.be/

• Digital Europe Final Conference 2003 in Venice (3-4 July 2003). http://www.feem.it/digitaleurope/index1.html

• Telework 2003: The 8th International Workshop and Business Conference on Telework, E-Wor and Social- Economical Development in S‹o Paulo, organised by the Council of Administration of S‹o Paulo and the International Telework Foundation (24-27 August 2003), http://www.crasp.com.br/telework

• EGOV03 Conference"From E-Government to E-Governance" in Prague, organised by the University of Linz and the University of Oldenburg (1-5 September 2003), http://falcon.ifs.uni-linz.ac.at/news/cfp_egovernment2003.html

• Scientific Conference: "Open Minds - Europe in a Global World - blending differences" in Lodz, organised by the CASE Foundation Warsaw and the Institute of Economics of the University of Lodz (13-15 September 2003), http://www.openminds.edu.pl/

• Conference "Information Society and the Challenges of Peripheral Regions" in Joensuu, organised by IANIS (18-19 September 2003), http://www.pohjois-karjala.fi/en/isit/index.htm

• The knowledge-based economy and regional economic development: an international perspective in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, organised by the Regional Studies Association (3-5 October 2003), http://www.regional-studies-assoc.ac.uk

• Telecities Autumn Event 2003 in Liverpool, organised by Telecities (9-10 October 2003), http://www.eurocities.org/viewPage.asp?Cat=Event&id=E00260

• eChallenges 2003 (ebew 2003) in Bologna (22-24 October 2003), http://www.echallenges.org

• Regional Studies Association Annual Conference 2003 "Economic Governance Post-Devolution: differentiation or convergence?" in London, organised by the Regional Studies Organisation (21 November 2003), http://www.regional-studies-assoc.ac.uk/events/events.html

• Conference "Europe at the Margins: EU Regional Policy and, Peripherality and Rurality" in Angers, organised by the Regional Studies Association (Mid-April 2004), http://www.regional-studies-assoc.ac.uk/events/events.ht

empirica Gesellschaft für Kommunikations- und Technologieforschung mbH prime contractor, private research and consulting organisation specialised in telematics, telework and new ways of work, e-commerce, telecare and telehealth.

Werner B. Korte: werner.korte@empirica.com
Karsten Gareis: karsten.gareis@empirica.com
Address: Oxfordstrasse 2, 53111 Bonn - Germany
Phone: ++49.228.985300
Fax: ++49.228.9853012
Web: www.empirica.com

Dansk Teknologisk, an independent, non-profit institution approved as technological service agency by the Danish Ministry of Business and Industry.

Jeremy Millard: jeremy.millard@teknologisk.dk
Address: Teknologiparken, 800 Aarhus C - Denmark
Phone: ++45.72.201417
Fax: ++45.72.201414
Web: www.teknologisk.dk

Dipartimento di Sociologia e Comunicazione, is a research body of the University of Rome "La Sapienza", focusing on advanced studies in sociology and communication in the framework of the Information Society.

Patrizio Di Nicola: patrizio.dinicola@uniroma1.it
Renato Fontana: renato.fontana@uniroma1.it
Address: Via Salaria 113, 00198 Rome - Italy
Phone: ++39 06 4991 8404
Fax: ++39 06 8419505
Web: www.comunicazione.uniroma1.it

The Local Futures Group is a research and strategy consultancy that provides a geographical perspective on economic and social change. We introduce this perspective into public policy and corporate strategies, both in the UK and internationally.

Mark Hepworth: mark.hepworth@localfutures.com
Lee Pickavance: lee.pickavance@localfutures.com
Address: 3 Queen Square, WC1N 3AU, London - England
Phone: ++44 020 7520 8120
Fax : ++44 020 7520 8150
Web: www.localfutures.com

Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaft m.b.H., a non-profit research organisation focusing on the study and the support of the development of the information and knowledge based society.

Markus Lassnig: markus.lassnig@salzburgresearch.at
Guntram Geser: guntram.geser@salzburgresearch.at
Heinz Mayringer: heinz.mayringer@salzburgresearch.at
Address: Jakob-Haringer-Strasse 5/III, 5020 Salzburg - Austria
Phone: ++43-662-2288-0
Fax: ++43-662-2288-222
Web: www.salzburgresearch.at

Work Research Centre, an independent research, consultancy and training company (IRL).

Richard Wynne: r.wynne@wrc-research.ie
Ivica Milicevic: i.milicevic@wrc-research.ie
Address: 1 Greenlea Drive, Terenure, Dublin 6W -Ireland
Phone: ++353.1.4927042
Fax: ++353.1.4927046
Web: www.wrc-research.ie

Newsletter n°1

Newsletter n°2