Information Society News

FP7 projects Aniketos and NESSOS, together with CHOReOS and IFIP TM present their Spring PhD School on Trustworthy & Secure Service Composition.

The first phase of the EU-Japan collaborative research projects with co-funding schemes between the European Commission and MIC/NICT from Japan has been initiated in the area of network technologies and systems. A workshop will take place on 18th April 2013 in Brussels, with the purpose to identify future collaborative research items and a set of common objectives to set up a partnership under the EU and Japan R&D strategies.

To encourage deployment of innovative solutions, the European Commission has started to support PPI (Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions) through the CIP program (Competitiveness and Innovation Program). PPI refers to procurement where contracting authorities act as a launching customer (early adopter) to purchase/deploy innovative goods or services that are newly arriving on the market and which are not yet available on a large-scale commercial basis. The aim of EU funding for PPIs is to speed up wide diffusion of innovative solutions by encouraging cooperation between procurers across Europe through cross-border coordinated (or joint) procurement to deploy the first batches of innovative solutions that are newly arriving on the European market. The current call invites proposals for 'PPI pilot' actions, that provides EC co-financing to consortia of procurers for deploying innovative ICT solutions in any of the priority action areas of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP AHA) defined in the EIP AHA Strategic Operational Plan. Pilots have two phases: a preparation phase and an implementation phase, as a joint procurement or as coordinated separate procurements on common specifications. The preparation/coordination/management can be funded at a maximum of 100%. The actual procurement will be co-funded at a maximum of 20% of the price.

The 2012 eGovernment Benchmark represents an important reform.

The main objective of this study is to research the coverage of each of the nine main broadband technologies – meaning what proportion of homes have access to services using each technology, as well as to estimate the coverage of “combinations” of technologies.

The benchmark pilot at hand addresses the Transparency and collaborative nature of eGovernment service delivery, as well as the Openness of policy as a whole in terms of the availability of participative, so-called Web 2.0 policy instruments.

This report captures the findings of the 2010 eGovernment benchmark survey, conducted over the period May to December 2010. This year’s edition features a significantly expanded wealth of information in familiar areas as well as new domains. It covers a detailed profile for each of the benchmarked countries, and an extensive range of data tables with rankings. Qualitative insights complement the picture and comprehensively illustrate the way forward for Europe.

This is the 2011 comparative study on the Broadband Internet Access Costs in 27 Member States of the European Union as well as Canada, Croatia, Iceland, Japan, South Korea, Liechtenstein, Macedonia (FYROM), Norway, State of California, State of Colorado, State of New York, Switzerland and Turkey. It is based mainly on information collected in the period between February 1st and 15th, 2011.

There were 134.7 million fixed broadband subscribers in the 29 European countries surveyed1 at the end of 2010, a 7% increase over the previous year. This translates into a 26.5% penetration rate (26.5 subscribers per 100 inhabitants, 1.7 percentage points higher than at the end of 2009) on average, and 28.8% when looking only at Western European countries (the EU-15 + Norway and Iceland).

The purpose of the study is to collect comprehensive and systemized information on (a) the MSS (satellite component) and CGC authorisation regimes put in place by the Member States, (b) the actual MSS and CGC authorisations issued to the selected operators by the relevant authorities of the Member States and (c) national enforcement rules applicable to the MSS and CGC authorisations, including specific remedies, in case the selected operators failed to comply with any conditions attached to their authorisations as required by laws of the respective Member States.

The take-up of ICT based applications and services is constantly being monitored. One major challenge is that the developments go very fast. However, traditional statistics generally take several years to prepare. By the time they capture the uptake the diffusion could have reached a critical point. It is here that ICT comes to the rescue since it is not only a goal in itself but also a mean to measure the latest trends.

The objective has been to analyse the price developments over the last 12 years, as expressed in the OECD basket comparisons, and as found in prices of single calls. The study uses the OECD basket results in a slightly adapted form, in order to maintain consistency over the 13 years.

This is the second part of the 2009 comparative study on the Broadband Internet Access Costs in 27 Member States of the European Union and some other countries of reference.

This document provides the method for the 2010 benchmark as part of the 2010 refresh of the eGovernment benchmarking process.

Recent years have witnessed a growing awareness of the extent to which ICT permeates all our society and economy, and of the wide-reaching implications this has on the structures and dynamics of the European society.

This report provides new research on the economic impact of ICT.

The program of the Dem@Care Summer School on Ambient Assisted Living (DemAAL) is high-quality and interesting including both lectures and lab sessions. A balance is kept between ICT and clinical related speakers both from inside and outside the Dem@Care project (FP7).

VP Neelie Kroes, accompanied by Digital Champion for Ireland, Lord David Puttnam, visited St Colmcille's Community School in Dublin – a school benefiting from 100 Mbps connectivity.