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Do regional disparities still matter in the Information Society?
by Werner B. Korte

Differences in economic strength and resulting levels of income between regions have from the very beginning plaid a large role in the process of European integration. The Treaty of the European Union calls for "reducing disparities between the levels of development of the various regions" in order to "promote overall harmonious development". A large share of the EU budget, currently roughly a third, is annually spent on regional policy measures such as subsidies. Although the EU's regional policy has sometimes been discredited for being used to bribe certain Member States into agreeing to EU decisions requiring unilateral vote, there continues to be a general consensus that helping the worst-off regions to catch up is a reason for spending taxpayers' money.

However, the last decades have been an era of profound change in the way the European economies work, much of it associated with the rise of the Knowledge or Information Society and the so-called New Economy. These changes make it necessary to reassess the rationale for regional policy in Europe.

The Information Society, which is the common expression for the application of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in all spheres of the economy and the society, has opened up huge possibilities for regions to overcome traditional disadvantages deriving from remoteness and distance. Consequently, some authors have suggested the "death of distance" as one of the main outcomes of the Internet and other developments in ICT. By means of the Internet and other computer networks, it is now possible for even the most remote company to participate in the global economy, selling goods and, in particular, digital services to clients located hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away, all by the click of a mouse. Geographical closeness to markets seems to have lost relevance. Anectdotal evidence of knowledge experts co-operating with customers all over the world from, for example, the Highlands & Islands region of Scotland might be taken as proof that distance as a barrier to economic activity is an outdated concept.

But reality is not as simple as that. Inspite of the tremendous possibilities for electronic communication which the Internet has brought, people still want to meet face-to-face. This applies, in particular, to those involved in the process of innovation and co-operation -- which is, as research has shown, today more than ever the very basis for sustainable economic development in a region.

What is even more important for answering the initial question, however, is the fact that the death of distance as it is arguably being enabled by ICTs refers only to the potential of ICTs, not to the way it is actually being used. According to the - admittedly scarce - available evidence there are huge disparities between, on the one hand, peripheral and disadvantaged regions and, on the other hand, central and well-positioned regions when it comes not only to the diffusion of ICT applications, but even more to the actual use being made of them. Andrew Gillespie, who together with his team at the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies in Newcastle has been spearheading European research into the effect of telecommunications on geography, points out in a recent paper that those regions which could benefit most from ICTs (and are in most need to catch up) actually seem to be the ones which make the least use of them when compared to their core region counterparts.

Currently, lack of available data limits our possibility to go any deeper into this question. Too little is known about to what extent companies, government and private households in regions have access to ICTs, and apply them for their specific needs.

BISER is a research project that will contribute to filling this gap, by developing and piloting indicators for measuring Information Society developments at the regional level. I am very much looking forward to the results of this exercise, as it will support policy-makers as well as the research community in figuring out how best to exploit ICTs to the benefit of Europe's regions.

 


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Soon available: List of BISER eEurope Regions Indicators
by Karsten Gareis

The BISER project team has recently published an initial list of eEurope Regions Indicators which will now be discussed with all interested members of the public. This list contains indicators for the extent to which EU regions have developed towards what is known as the Information Society. The set of indicators will then be revised as a result of the public consultation process, after which it will be translated into data gathering instructions (operationalisation). BISER will collect data using two representative surveys: the Regional Population Survey of the entire population aged 15 and older (RPS) and the Regional Decision Maker Survey which is targeted at establishments (RDMS). Surveys will be conducted in early 2003 in a sample of NUTS 2 regions across all EU Member States. Data from these surveys as well as other sources, structured along the ten BISER domains, will feed into the eEurope Regions Indicators database which is currently under construction.

How did we generate the eEurope Regions Indicator List?

The first step was to define indicator requirements, which means identifying the indicators which are needed to make sense of regional development in the Information Society. The second step was to take stock of existing indicators for which data is already available at the regional level. For some indicators data already exists, but for many no statistics at all are yet available. This is what we call gaps in data coverage. For these gaps, the BISER project team has in a third step developed a number of innovative regional indicators. Indicator development is structured along the following domains: Government and Public Administration, Transport and the Environment, Health and Care, Regional Identity, Business Enterprise, Innovation and R&D, Work and Labour Market, Education, Training and Skills, Social Cohesion, ICT Infrastructure. These indicators constitute our list of eEurope Regions Indicators.

The BISER project consortium invites all interested parties to participate in the discussion on regional indicators for the Information Society. Please follow this link to view the full set of BISER indicators, and the feedback template (available from 15 October).

 

 


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Business enterprise
by Eliana Como

Since the mid 1980s, intangible factors, like innovation, human capital and knowledge were painted as the major factors for long-term growth. More recently, the main factors or preconditions for a creative environment are considered local know-how, relational capital and collective learning exploiting the richness of local relationships that define a productive "vocation".
Despite globalisation, the local level become more and more important and regional differences are the prime sources of competitive advantage. The core matter of development is progressively placed more on enhancing local creativity, recreating the particular environment of such innovative milieux as Silicon Valley, Orange County and the Italian industrial districts.
Regions continue to follow very different paths: some of them are doing well in the current phase of the growth cycle and are driving growth, while others are less successful at capturing trade and additional economic activities. This division reflects less and less the traditional dichotomy between urban and rural areas. Performances are varying widely in all types of regions. Winning regions are those with a solid export base and notably with a sectoral distribution of activities emphasizing mostly globalised industries such as pharmaceuticals, electrical and non-electrical machinery, basic chemicals, scientific instruments, textiles, electronics, and services to firms.
A large number of factors determine the attractiveness of regions for investors. The most important are proximity to markets, quality and availability of labour, appropriate infrastructure as transport and telecommunications, presence of high social capital and a skilled workforce, able to compete on niches and specialized markets and to take part to global trade, quality of life, cultural similarities, presence of network and clusters.
One of the most important but often elusive factor to understand the development of regions and the diffusionof ICT is entrepreneurship. In recent years, the emergence and expansion of ICT is placing a greater premium on entrepreneurial traits such as individuality, innovative ideas, flexibility and speed. As information barriers and transaction costs fall, new opportunities are arising for individual entrepreneurs to enter into markets and for small firms to grow and show better performances.
One of the greatest obstacles to entry of new firms in ICT economics is lack of financing coupled with insufficient management skill. Venture capital is a special type of investment targeted mostly at new and innovative enterprises. Venture capitalists also provide organization, marketing, management and legal advice. Through the provision of finance and monitoring of investments, they also contribute significantly to improved firm performance in terms of survival rates, innovation and growth.
The dimension of firm may also be important to understand the development of regions and the diffusion of entrepreneurship. Many studies find that smaller establishments tend to have higher entry and exit rates in both manufacturing and services. In general, the entry and start-up of new firms is not greatly deterred in the presence of scale economies and most new firms are very small. Moreover, smaller firms tend to grow faster, even if they have significantly less chance of survival than large firms.


 

New indicators for making sense of the Information Society the SIBIS project
by the SIBIS project team

SIBIS is an ongoing IST programme research project concerned with the development of "statistical indicators for benchmarking EU countries in the Information Society". The project bears a close resemblance to BISER, but looks only at data at the national level. What follows is a short outline of the project which has started in early 2001 and is currently publishing first results.

SIBIS was initiated based on the finding that currently available official statistics are often seriously inadequate to the task of charting Europe's progress in an Information Society. The bulk of official statistics continue to be tuned to the economic and social systems typical of a Europe emerging from Word War II, when manufacturing dominated over services, tangible assets over intangibles and traditional over flexible employment models.

It is against this background that SIBIS is developing indicators that reflect the priorities and targets of the e-Europe initiative. To achieve this purpose a large amount of material from political sources (EU, international organisations such as the OECD and ILO, European countries, and the US), statistical offices and the scientific literature has been collected and evaluated. The analysis of this material has resulted in a broad overview of the existing knowledge (measurement concepts, indicators and data) on measuring the transformation of the industrial society to an information society. The project has also developed a number of new indicators which fill in some of the gaps to assessing this trend, structured into nine specific areas:

  • Telecommunications and access
  • Internet for research and development
  • Security and trust
  • Education
  • Work, employment and skills
  • Social inclusion
  • e-Commerce
  • e-Government
  • Health

The overview of the collected material (including a collection of already existing indicators and those currently under development) and the new indicators developed have recently been made available to the IST programme and interested parties in a series of nine SIBIS Topic Research Reports.

Currently the SIBIS consortium is undertaking extensive pan-European surveys of enterprises and the general population to fieldtest the indicators and collect first empirical data on a pilot basis. An e-Europe Indicator Handbook to be provided towards the end of the project in mid-2003 will detail indicator definitions and construction in a way appropriate for use by statistical agencies. Based on the survey results, a series of another nine Topic Reports will be published (publication date foreseen is April 2003) assessing the current state of European Information Society and preliminary benchmarking individual countries.

The BISER consortium co-operates closely with the SIBIS research team. BISER will partly build on the indicator development undertaken in SIBIS. Indicators developed in SIBIS for being applied at the country state level may also be applicable at the regional level. For each case, however, an assessment has to take place whether using this indicator for measuring developments in regions does accurately reflect the properties of the chosen regional level (e.g. NUTS 2).

For more information on SIBIS, including access to working documents not available to the broader public yet, please contact sibis@empirica.com. The project website can be found under http://www.sibis-eu.org/.


The new role of regions in the knowledge economy
by Jeremy Millard

Abstract. This paper unpicks some of the forces currently working at the regional and local level in Europe as the knowledge economy unfolds.
It examines the roles of the transactional and communication aspects of ICT and the importance of different types of knowledge on the location of economic activity. In the knowledge economy, technologies can be applied at all steps of the value chain and , to all transactions between the steps, but it is not just the transactional and communication aspects of ICT which are important, but the creation, distribution and use of knowledge itself. Distinction is frequently made between codified and tacit knowledge. Codified knowledge is easily transmittable in formal and systematic language, whereas tacit knowledge always has an implicit or individual character, often strongly based on individual experience and/or on shared organisational experience, which makes its formalisation and exchange difficult. The two types of knowledge are complements rather than substitutes for one another. In fact, they tend to co-evolve: the process of codification generating new tacit knowledge in a type of virtuous circle.
In a knowledge driven economy, regional innovation and competitiveness can be assumed to be determined by the capacity of a territory to generate both economies of scale and of scope: economies of scale - scientific production generally needs proximity and concentration and economies of scope - knowledge production requires a concentration of diversified competencies and assets. The necessary to innovate interaction between individuals and organisations is much more likely to occur in regions with high physical densities of skills and specialised firms.
In this way two complementary but contrasting forces are identified: spatial concentration and spatial de-concentration. Spatial de-concentration most typically occurs with activities in which the main forms of knowledge are codable and where dispersed sites can offer labour and/or production cost advantages, etc. Spatial concentration can occur with activities in which the main forms of knowledge are tacit and when the benefits of building highly specialised teams can be decisive. There is clear evidence that differences between European regions, are not decreasing as clearly as they are between Member States. The tendency towards spatial concentration may be stronger than the tendency towards spatial de-concentration.

A recent feature of economic development has been the move towards globalisation of the production process, which strengthens the importance of locality. Increased mobility of commodities, production factors and information has undermined traditional comparative advantages. The establishment and nurture of creative environments, can be decisive for successful regional development in the Information Society. Many authors indicate that successful localities in the future will be creative localities.
A tentative framework for the regional knowledge economy is described, as developed by the IST Programme projects Beep and Biser, and an indication is given of the practical value of this on-going work. The building of typologies that capture the state of regional development across Europe are imperative for developing policy and targeting resources .Territorial identity is increasing, and the need to promote regional territorial identity is often seen as just as great as is the need to promote economic growth, social inclusion and environmental sustainability. These are thus the first four domains of an e-Europe regional development framework, to which should be added ICT itself, resulting in the 5E framework. It creates a basis for further research, now being undertaken, but does not imply at this stage equal weight, importance or any relationship. It rather enables each domain to be further specified and researched on the basis of relevance and down to indicator level depending on defined need and purpose.


How can we measure new ways of working in the Information Society?
by Karsten Gareis

"New ways of working" is a widely used term for describing developments towards greater flexibility in work arrangements. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have greatly contributed to widening the options available for how to organise work. Companies make use of this potential in order to better coordinate the demands of the production process with workers' requirements. What implications does this have for the use of statistical indicators?

In general, the increasing flexibility in working arrangements makes it harder to assign individual persons to categories of workers. To take an example: knowing exactly whether a person is working full-time or part-time is gradually becoming impossible as more and more workers can choose from a potentially endless variety of working time models. The same applies to other developments, such as the increasing spread of what is called teleworking. Let us have a closer look at how to properly develop statistics for this way of working.

Telework basically means working away from the "usual" place of work which is enabled by ICTs. Until now, the spread of telework in a country has been measured using the indicator "number of teleworkers" (see the European Commission's annual Status Report on New Ways of Working in the Knowledge Economy), based on the assumption that there is a clear dividing line between teleworkers and non-teleworkers. This clear line is gradually disappearing. It seems necessary, therefore, to switch from "teleworkers" as unit of reference to "intensity of telework".

Most public interest in telework revolves around home-based telework where workers spends some or all of their working time at home, co-operating with fellow workers through ICTs. A proper understanding of the phenomenon, however, should also include (and differentiate between) other types of delocalised work such as mobile telework and centre-based telework, as well as self-employed teleworkers who operate from a SOHO (Small Office Home Office). Indicators should be developed that provide numbers for all of these types of telework. Only such a detail of knowledge allows us to shed light on the impacts of this way of working. For example, telework is generally being considered to contribute to a reduction in traffic volumes. At closer look, though, only certain types of teleworkers are likely to decrease their travel, while others might lead to even higher levels of traffic.

There is also a strong need for more data on outcome indicators, i.e. the effects of new ways of working on people's lives and EU labour markets at large. The discussion on ICTs is still too often dominated by an overtly deterministic view of how technology changes human behaviour. It is, however, by no means self-evident that the application of telework leads to the outcomes that were initially expected, and that underlay EU and Member States policy in this field.

BISER will pilot telework indicators in a general population survey to be conducted later in the project, and is currently developing working definitions and survey modules for this task. This work builds on previous research undertaken in SIBIS, another ongoing EU Fifth Framework research project that researches develops and pilots Information Society indicators at the nation state level.


An important but not easy question: how to collect EU data about labour work?
by Eliana Como

The only statistics on employment, unemployment and related variables comparable and complete for all EU Member States are provided by Labour Force Survey (LFS). Since it is based on a survey of households and uses a common set of questions and methodology, the LFS abstracts from national differences in definitions, methods of classification and administrative procedures and regulations. From 2001, this survey analyses even issues concerned flexibility of the labour market: besides questions on the type of labour contracts, it provides data on paid and unpaid overtime, shift work patterns, on-call work, variable working times and working time banking.
Another important data source is the Eurostat Benchmark Employment Series which is considered the best available measure of changes in the total employed in individual Member States. The series do not come from a common source but from quarterly or annual national labour force surveys, national accounts, registration data, labour accounts and a microcensus.
For EU countries as well as the rest of the world, comparative data comes from the ILO and the OECD. The ILO compiles a Collection of Labour Statistics on an annual basis. The project, called the ILO Key Indicators of the Labour Market (KILM), does not directly use national sources as its primary data providers, but rather takes advantage of existing compilations of data held by various international organisations.
The OECD also hosts data on labour force statistics which are made public in quarterly and annual reports.
With regard to data on the use of ICTs related to work, skills and employment, the major source is Eurostat, that has been very active lately. An example is given by the EU research project Emergence that has recently staged a survey of employers on the use of telework, outsourcing and other forms of "eWork".
A number of sources present data collected by resources of company surveys, as for example the Cranfield European Human Resource Management Survey, which deals with various subjects in the human resources & industrial relations field, and the Community Innovation Survey conducted by European Commission's DG Enterprise about investments in R&D and innovative performance.
Another group of data sources stems from surveys of the general population, households or workers. The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions is responsible for three major pan-European surveys on working conditions, on employment preferences and options and on employee participation and team-working.
A couple of data sources are available covering the area of education statistics with an emphasis on further education and lifelong learning: the Continuing Vocational Training Survey (CVTS) as well as the Vocational Education and Training Survey (VET). Conducted by Eurostat, both are annual surveys with a great prominence on non-formal training, but not covering informal learning such as self-directed learning.
The European System of Social Indicators (EUSI), directed by the Centre for Survey Research and Methodology called ZUMA, is developing a theoretically and methodologically well-grounded range of social indicators to be used for continuously observing the development of welfare and quality of life as well as changes in the social structure at the European Level.


The Importance of Regional Identity in the Information Society and Ways of Measurement
by Jeremy Millard

The regional identity domain of the BISER project attempts to examine the territorial identity of the region, i.e. as held by regional inhabitants (whether as individuals, households or organisations) as well as in relation to the external world. Regional identity is based on a changeable amalgam of individual and group adherence to, recognition of, and empathy (or occasionally disdain) for a tract of territory. This is not necessarily strictly spatially defined as it may owe more to somewhat fuzzy and sometimes inaccurate cultural, linguistic and historical underpinnings, but it normally has a strong geographic expression through a sense of place and belonging. Apart from feelings of identity expressed through attitudes and notions of belonging, regional identity can also be related to the behaviour of inhabitants in terms of their membership of specifically regional associations and networks. This aspect is strongly linked to the existence and adherence of civic and professional norms and the development of regional social and organisational capital in the broader sense. More precisely, measuring social capital can include the development of indices including measures of community organisational life, measures of engagements in public affairs, measures of community volunteerism, measures of informal sociability and measures of trust.

But why is regional identity important in an Information Society? First of all, a region's attempt to build trust and community, as drivers for prosperity and competitiveness, can be supported by the development of the Information Society. This includes real and virtual networks, location marketing, place related web-sites, and place branding. Additional, we can conceive of regional identity through the existence and use of regionally-focused media, such as newspapers and TV and radio stations. Such media both create and give expression to regional identity and, in the present context, are prime candidates for exploiting ICT in order to reinforce their role. BISER is also interested in how ICT itself follows regional lines. Is it being used pro-actively to create individual regional identity and/or alliances across regions, countries and internationally? Does it sometimes force regions to club together to attain critical mass?

European as well as national policies in Europe are increasingly focusing on regional identity within an Information Society and regional development paradigm. BISER's discussions with regional development agencies and local governments responsible for regional development, through their European networks such as Eris@ and Elanet, show that these are acutely aware of the role of regional identity in helping and shape and boost their regional development strategies and the success they are likely to have. Regional identity in the Information Society is now firmly on the agenda of both policy makers and regional practitioners.

Regional identity in an Information Society context, especially in terms of specifying its parameters sufficiently precisely to allow the application of quantitative measurement , is virtually virgin territory and therefore its inclusion in BISER needs to start largely from the scratch. There are few, if any, existing comprehensive research studies or analyses on regional identity in general terms or in an Information Society context, and statistics are hardly available in any consistent or widespread manner, either at national or regional levels in Europe. The data identification process for the regional identity domain undertaken in BISER has identified two main types of data which the research shows are likely to be collectable and relevant in the present context: i) Regional identity seen from the perspective of private individuals and households and ii) Regional identity seen from the perspective of organisations (whether in the private, public or non-profit sectors).

Overall, it can be seen that regional identity is in many ways a very fuzzy concept, difficult to apply and measure, and that this is particularly the case within an Information Society and Knowledge Economy context where ICT has a powerful potential to delocalise and create links and networks not dependent upon territorial proximity. However, it is also clear that the concept of regional identity can contribute substantially to understanding how regional development takes place and how it can be benchmarked. Thus incorporation of indicators attempting to measure regional identity is strongly recommended.

 

Presentation of the BISER project at the "International Conference on Benchmarking"
by Markus Lassnig

The "International Conference on Benchmarking", took place from the 6th to 7th June 2002 in Stuttgart, Germany. Organised by the Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum together with the Innovation Relay Centre D/CH, and supported by VERITE - the IRE-Thematic Network, under the title "Virtual Environment for Innovation Management Technologies".
17 speakers highlighted the various approaches to benchmarking from organisations such as business development corporations, technology centres, innovation agencies, research institutes, business companies and regional governing bodies. The Presentations focused on: (a) company benchmarking and, (b) regional benchmarking. In this context, regional benchmarking was defined as the analysis of the regional differences in economic performance, the process of target definition which allows it to reach a superior performance, the development of suitable measures to improve performance and the search for best practices within regions.

From BISER's perspective the following two presentations were of special interest:

  • Dr. Christoph Koellreuter, BAK Basel, Economics Ltd., Switzerland: What the International Benchmark Club (IBC) has to offer to Regions in Europe. IBC has established a database containing data on 155 regions (mainly in the extended alpine space). Annually, it produces the IBC Report (the 2002 edition will be published end of August) and offers its members further exclusive services and benefits to help them win out in the competition among regional business centres. Further information from: http://www.ibn-bak.com
  • Dr. Bernhard Iking, ZENIT GmbH, Muelheim, Germany: Benchmarking Innovation Performance on Regional Level - Results for North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg. The project presented 17 innovation indicators in four areas: (a) human resources, (b) knowledge creation, (c) transmission and application of new knowledge and (d) innovation finance. Based on comparisons with the European average it identified strengths and weaknesses on the three covered regions. Further information from: http://www.zenit.de

Complete details of all the presentations can be downloaded from: http://www.steinbeis-europa.de/events/verite

For further information on the BISER presentation at this conference, please contact Markus Lassnig, Salzburg Research, Austria (markus.lassnig@salzburgresearch.at)

"Cities and Regions in the 21st Century" - CURDS conference in Newcastle upon Tyne (16- 18 September 2002)
by Reinhard Wickel

The Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS) is a multidisciplinary research centre with an international reputation for work on the economic and social development of cities and regions. In recent years, CURDS has become an institution of paramount importance in the field of Regional Development, especially through the research work of John Goddard, Andrew Gillespie and Patsy Healey. The year 2002 marks the 25th anniversary of CURDS and the centre celebrated the occasion with a conference which gathered top-level research expertise and practitioners in Newcastle upon Tyne. The conference set out to critically examine the current debates in urban and regional development studies and the prospects for cities and regions over the next quarter century.
In addition to topics like Knowledge-based Development, Cities and Regions: People and Places, Sub-national Governance and Economic Performance, the subject area Cities and Regions After Cyberspace has been profoundly discussed at the conference.
The following four presentations were among those of special interest to the BISER project:

In her presentation "Back to the Future: Regulatory Policy and the Geography of Media" Professor Susan Christopherson, Cornell University, examined how project work and the project workforce in the "old" media (motion pictures and television) and the "new" media (multi-media or Internet-based information) have been affected by changes in the regulatory regime governing entertainment and information-intensive industries in the United States. It appeared that the role that collective bargaining institutions play in industry governance proved to be of particular significance.
Professor Peter Nijkamp, Free University of Amsterdam, presented an ongoing research project about "Modelling Policy Perceptions and ICT Profiles in European Cities". He outlined a conceptual framework designed to improve our understanding of the driving forces of urban ICT policies. The framework focuses on the way decision-makers perceive their city, and shape their opinions about ICT; it addresses in particular the way these decision-makers evaluate the importance of ICT policy for their city. Next, interviews with urban decision-makers in a number of European cities in three countries (Austria, Spain and The Netherlands) are being used to analyse the complex relationship between the perceived urban characteristics (e.g. nature of problems, urban image), personal attitudes towards ICT, administrative features of the cities concerned, and perceptions of the relevance of ICT to the cities.
In their paper "Creative Destruction: the Struggle for Work-Life Balance in San Francisco's New Knowledge Economy Milieu", Andy Pratt and Helen Jarvis elaborated on issues of work-life balance for a sample of advantaged dual career San Francisco households engaged in creative industry, "new economy" employment. By focusing on this sub-population the authors drew attention to the closely bound nature of life and work. The place where one lives and works (work from home) is a particular solution to everyday time-space co-ordination which may contribute to improved work-life balance. But dual career households fail to co-ordinate a live-work activity for both. So a live-work activity for one partner may turn out to be a "life only" for the other.
Rob Kitchen reported on research he undertook in Ireland on "21st century Dublin: ICTs, the 'Celtic Tiger' and Urban-Regional Restructuring". He identified foreign direct investment by ICT companies as one of the prime factor underlying the ongoing transformation of Ireland. This investment has significantly shifted Ireland's position in the global economy and has led to wide scale urban-regional restructuring, most pronouncedly in the Dublin region. The author has explored this development, thereby focusing in particular on the ambivalence between employment for many on the one hand, and social and spatial divisions on the other hand.

Further information on the conference can be found on the CURDS website: http://curdsweb1.ncl.ac.uk/curds/Default.asp

 

Key Events on Regions and the Information Society
by Sonja Müeller

In order to reach policy-makers and key actors in regional economies and to obtain maximum awareness of the results in policy-making and professional statistical community, the BISER project has been present at key conferences and workshops in the area of regional development in the Information Society, and will continue to do so in the future.
Until now, presentations of BISER were given at the following conferences and workshops:

  • eGovernment Cluster Meeting in Brussels (12 October 2001)
  • European Conference "Information Society and Regional Sustainable Development" in Puerto de la Cruz- Tenerife, organised by the Government of the Canary Islands (11- 12 April 2002) http://www.canarias-digital.org/canarias2002
  • Workshop at the EU-China Co-operation Forum on the Information Society in Beijing, organised by the EU-China Co-operation Forum on the Information Society (17 April 2002) http://www.eurochina2002.com
  • International Conference on Benchmarking in Stuttgart, organised by the Steinbeis- Europa- Centre (6- 7 June 2002) http://www.steinbeis-europa.de/events/verite
  • Eris@ Conference in Toledo (14 June 2002) http://www.erisa.be
  • Conference "Cities and Regions in the 21st Century" in Newcastle, organised by the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (17- 18 September 2002) http://curdsweb1.ncl.ac.uk/curds/Default.asp

For detailed information about the Conference "Cities and Regions in the 21st Century" in Newcastle and the "International Conference on Benchmarking" in Stuttgart please refer to separate articles in this newsletter.
Additional, there are interesting specialist and general conferences and workshops in the future, which will be relevant for presenting and discussing BISER results, some of which are listed below:

 

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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


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Editorial staff: Lucia D'Ambrosi (coordinator), Lucia De Angelis, Mara Fioretti, Raffaela Leoni. Graphics: Claudio Cecchini