Joint Research Center

# 10 - January 2014

IS News: The Information Society Newsletter

NEW:

1st map of e-Inclusion intermediary actorsThe future of workOpening Up Education

IS Unit research on European Policies for the Digital Shift

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JRC MISSION:

«As the Commission’s in-house science service, the Joint Research Centre’s mission is to provide EU policies with independent, evidence-based scientific and technical support throughout the whole policy cycle. Working in close cooperation with policy Directorates-General, the JRC a-ddresses key societal challenges while stimulating innovation through developing new methods, tools and standards, and sharing its know-how with the Member States, the scientific community and international partners. Key policy areas include: environment and climate change; energy and transport; agriculture and food security; health and consumer protection; information society and digital agenda; safety and security, including nuclear; all supported through a cross-cutting and multidisciplinary approach.»

IS NEWS

Editors Note

Applying Behavioural Insights to Policy-making

Looking at Digital Economy from three main angles The impact of ICT and employment

Patent intelligence for policy support

EURIPIDIS: New IS Unit Research on European Innovation Policies for the Digital Shift

EIPE: European ICT Poles of Excellence EIPE industrial clusters: key lessons for policy

MIREIA - results of survey of e-Inclusion intermediary actors

: International Roadmap on Policy Making 2.0.

Digital Games - new ways to help professionals address social exclusion

The Future of Work - the crowd, the cloud and the emergence of new forms of paid and unpaid work

ICT AGE - strategies for the use of technologies in long term care

SCALE CCR: Key Outcomes of the ‘Up-Scaling Creative Classrooms in Europe’ Project

IS Unit contributes to newly-launched EC Communicationn on Opening Up Education

Developing and Understanding Digital Competence in Europe (DIGCOMP)

Events

Publications

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INDEX

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Issue # 10 - December 2013

Editors Note

Ioannis MaghirosHead of the Information Society Unit

European CommissionJoint Research Center

Institute of Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS)

This first IS Unit Newsletter for 2014 coincides with the launching of Horizon2020, the European Commission’s Research and Innovation Framework programme, as well as with the start of the implementation of the first JRC multi-annual work-plan which has been adopted by the European Commission.

Horizon2020 aims to radically impact EU innovation outcomes, which we are preparing to monitor and report on.

The JRC 2014-15 work plan comprises some 750 projects, of which 12 will be implemented by the IS Unit in direct collaboration with our Brussels colleagues responsible for the policy areas we are working on. In total, we collaborate with colleagues from 5 DGs, mostly in the area of ICT-induced societal changes and in the economic analysis in support of ICTs. We also have plans to explore the likely impact of digital science 2.0 in an effort to prepare capacity for future research.

Last year we were particularly happy to see the direct policy impact of our on behavioural economics for policy making. The output of this research, carried out by us in collaboration with our IHCP and SANCO/B1 colleagues, took the form of a JRC Scientific and Policy report entitled “Applying Behavioural Sciences to EU policy-making”. The policy brief was presened to the participants of a high-level conference on which we report in detail.

For 2014, our new star project is EURIPIDIS (European Policies for the Digital Shift); it has just started and promises to elucidate as well as quantify what is innovation in ICTs.

We also report on our ongoing project DERP (Digital Economy Research), where I am happy to announce that a total of 8 studies have been published in 2013, two of which are related to the impact of ICT on employment, as well as numerous articles. Many more are foreseen for 2014.

A detailed description of the outcome of the EIPE (European ICT Poles of Excellence) project can be also found within

these pages, reporting in particular on the Asian industrial clusters. It is no surprise that the project finds that there is significant concentration of ICT innovation in a few geographical areas in Europe. However, the policy options based on this analysis are not as easy to identify and prioritise. We also report on our efforts in relation to Patent Intelligence in support of policies.

For the first time, a research project has created a map of eInclusion intermediary actors in the EU. The results of the MIREIA survey were officially presented to policy makers during the High-level conference on eGovernment organised by the Lithuanian presidency.

There is a final report that simply touches on the very important issue of the Future of work and on which we report in detail.. We expect this will lead us to a new research in the area of social innovation and its impacts, and in particular the emergence of the sharing economy.

We have started our investigation of the free sharing economy through our work on ICT for employability, and we were surprised by the emergence of very successful paid-for sharing of the material goods economy (i.e. sharing gardens, cars, house-beds) which clearly creates added-value but also a number of legal and regulatory challenges.

Last but not least, we also present on our research on opening-up education and upscaling creative classrooms, including a new report on the future of learning. In this area we are very happy to highlight that our framework for developing and understanding digital competence in Europe has been adopted as an input to Action 62 of the Digital Agenda. It has also become the basis on which data on e-skills is collected in EUROSTAT’s household survey on ICT usage.

With a total of 31 reports and 13 peer-review articles, 2013 has been a very busy year and we are looking forward to steadily improving both our output and outcomes in 2014.

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IS NEWS

behavioural element. Some policies aim to change behaviour, others depend on a particular set of behaviours to be effective, and still others wish to prevent behaviour which might be harmful to citizens or consumers. This behavioural elements needs to be clarified in as much detail as possible before designing a study that provides useful input to policy.

It is equally important to apply behavioural insights early in the policy-making process. While behavioural science can be applied at any stage of the process (design, implementation or evaluation), the earlier it is incorporated, the more effective its contribution is likely to be. An early application will not only ensure the soundness of the policy design (from a behavioural perspective), but it will also allow more time to conduct behavioural studies in support of that policy.

SANCO’s Director-General, Paola Testori Coggi, stated at the Conference that providing more information was often not the solution; rather it was a question of providing the right amount of information. This notion that more information is not necessarily better is also highlighted by the policy brief. The amount of information passed on to consumers has tended to increase continuously, on the assumption that they will be able to process it to their best advantage. This has not always worked, and may have even been counterproductive in some cases.

The policy brief also offers a word of caution. Applied behavioural science will help us to better understand and anticipate behaviour, and perhaps nudge people in a particular direction. Showing what does (and what does not) affect behaviour can make policy interventions more effective. However, it is intended to complement existing initiatives, not to replace them. Because of its growing popularity, applied behavioural science may be expected to solve problems it is not meant to address. The possibility of behaviourally-inspired policy solutions should not discard options that could be more appropriate and direct.

The interest in behaviourally-inspired approaches to policy issues shows no sign of abating. In the European Commission, the incoming Director General of the JRC, Vladimir Sucha (also present at the Conference), announced that wherever there is a demand for support to behavioural studies in the Commission, the JRC will respond. The IS Unit has taken note and continues to strengthen its activities in behavioural science.

For more information please visit the IS Unit Behavioural Science webpages.Contacts: Rene van Bavel, Gabriele Esposito

The European Commission organised the Conference “Applying Behavioural Insights to Policy-making” in Brussels on 30th September. The event, organised by DG SANCO with support from the JRC, brought together academics and policy-makers interested in behavioural approaches to policy issues in the EU.

In addition to keynote addresses by Eldar Shafir of Princeton University and Augustin Landier of the Toulouse School of Economics, the Conference included presentations on five behavioural studies launched by the European Commission. These studies covered diverse policy areas such as on-line gambling, credit card fees, barriers to cross-border healthcare, retail investment services and online provision of products’ environmental information. The contractors for these studies presented their results and Commission staff explained their rationale and how these findings would fit into the overall policy process.

The IS Unit, which helped organise the Conference, formally supports Commission services on these behavioural studies through an administrative agreement with DG SANCO. In addition, it has been building up capacities on behavioural sciences over the past few years and is conducting a number of behavioural studies itself, on topics ranging from online privacy notices to physical activity to online provision of information about digital products. To coincide with the Conference, the Unit produced the policy brief “Applying Behavioural Sciences to EU Policy-making” in collaboration with colleagues at the JRC’s Institute for Health and Consumer Protection. This brief offers an introduction to the issue and takes stock of the lessons learned in supporting behavioural studies at the Commission over the past two years.

For example, one of these lessons, echoed by Robert Madelin (Director-General of DG CNECT) at the Conference, is that behavioural insights can be applied to the process of making policies itself. Since decision-makers are also subject to biases, heuristics, and a number of other influencing factors (such as social norms and in-group vs. out-group hostilities), being aware of these potential pitfalls can help when developing and pushing forward new policies.

Another lesson is to define the aim of a behavioural study in as much detail as possible. Policies will often have a

JRC Policy Brief Presented at EU ConferenceApplying Behavioural Insights to Policy-making

Commissioner Neven Mimica speaks at the Conference

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Issue # 10 - December 2013

The JRC-IPTS Digital Economy Research Programme

The IS Unit looks at the Digital Economy from three main angles: e-commerce, copyright in online digital media and measuring the macro-economic impact of digital technology.

E-commerceThe internet promises a borderless world, where everything is just a click away. The completion of an EU Digital Single Market is one of the main policy priorities of the Digital Agenda. In reality however, there are still many obstacles that could stand in the way of a successful online transaction.

The IS Unit is addressing the following overarching research questions:

• how does the shift from offline to online trade affect consumers and producers?

• how does the regulatory environment in the EU Digital Single Market contribute to this?

This research also includes an exploration of the role that geographical distance plays in e-commerce, the regulatory differences between Member States, their linguistic market fragmentation, the differences in online payments systems, parcel delivery and trust factors in online domestic and cross-border trade in the EU.

In the absence of official statistics on online trade, a first task was to collect data on it and estimate its volume in the EU. A second task was to explain the observed online trade patterns: what are the drivers and impediments to online domestic and cross-border trade? What is keeping consumers back from shifting from offline to online trade, and from domestic to cross-border online trade? Finally, the IS Unit examined price and availability discrimination in the online EU Digital Single Market, the extent of this phenomenon and its impact on consumers.

Three studies on e-commerce have been published so far:

• The Drivers and Impediments for Cross-border eCommerce in the EU. E. Gomez, B. Martens, G. Turlea.

• What does Economic Research tell us about Cross-border e-Commerce in the EU Digital Single Market? B. Martens.

• Does online trade live up to the promise of a borderless world? Evidence from the EU Digital Single Market B. Cowgill, C. Dorobantu, B. Martens.

Copyright issues in online digital mediaThe shift from analogue to digital technology has resulted in a significant reduction in communication and transaction costs. This, in turn, has had an effect on property rights and the allocation of revenue, which is already clearly visible in the media industries. Here, copyright has become a major issue which has led to a debate on the revision of the EU Copyright Directive.

The IS Unit’s research seeks to produce empirical evidence to inform these policy debates by investigating the patterns of EU domestic and cross-border trade in copyright-protected digital media (especially music) and by trying to explain the observed trade patterns: has digitisation changed trade

patterns in media products? In the EU, market segmentation is closely linked to territorial segmentation in the copyright management regime. The IS Unit examines to what extent the absence of a single EU copyright management regime affects digital cross-border delivery.

Moreover, the rise of the internet has also facilitated the circulation of copyright-infringing content. The IS Unit will measure the extent of online media piracy and examine the trade-off between legal and illegal content circulating on the internet. Thus, it will be able to estimate the impact of a de facto weakening in copyright protection on the internet on the production of digital media and examine to what extent piracy undermines the prime objective of copyright - the stimulation of artistic production.

One study, Digital Music Consumption on the Internet: Evidence from Clickstream, by L. Aguiar and B. Martens, was published in 2013.

Measuring the macro-economic impact of digital technology The EU’s overriding policy objective at the moment is to create growth and jobs to overcome the economic crisis. This policy priority is enshrined in the Commission’s main policy document, Europe 2020, and has filtered through to a number of subsequent and more specific policy documents, including the Digital Agenda and the Single Market policy documents. ICT plays an important role in the Commission’s policies to overcome the economic crisis in at least two ways.

First, ICT technology could contribute to innovation across the board, increase productivity and competitiveness and thereby re-launch the EU economy towards growth. Second, ICT is seen as a fast-growing sector in the economy that could be an important contributor to employment growth.

The macro-economic component of the Digital Economy research programme focuses on the impact of digital technology on economic growth, on employment and on consumer welfare.

Four studies have been published in 2013:

• ICT & growth - ICT and Productivity: A Review of the Literature. F. Biagi.

• ICT & employment (article on next page)

- ICT Employment Statistics in Europe: Measurement Methodology. A. Sabadash.

- ICT-induced Technological Progress and Employment: a Review of the Literature. A. Sabadash.

• On the consumer value of the Digital Economy - Has the Digital Divide Been Reversed? Evidence from Five EU Countries. S. Pantea, B. Martens.

More studies are scheduled to be published in 2014.

More information on the IS Unit Digital Economy webpages.Contact: Bertin Martens

Looking at Digital Economy from three main angles

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Figure 2: ICT employment in the EU-27 in 2012, in 1000Figure 1: ICT employment in the EU-27 in 2004-2012,1000s

Countries of the study “Employment effects of ICT at the firm-level”

The impact of ICT on employment

IS NEWS

Being one of the key EU economic policy domains, employment occupies an important place in Europe 2020. While focus on employment has been long formalised in the EU policies, it is only recently that employment targets were allied to the ICT. Understanding the relation between ICT and employment becomes even more important in the current situation, where the EU economy is struggling with the consequences of the 2008-2009 recession and the sovereign-debt crisis.

In the Digital Economy Research Project (DERP) we study the relation between ICT and employment by following two research lines, a methodological and an analytical one.

Within the methodological research line, two reports have been published. The first, ICT-induced Technological Progress and Employment: a Happy Marriage or a Dangerous Liaison? (A. Sabadash) is a review of the contemporary literature on the main theories, methodologies and findings on the employment impact of ICT. Although ICT is regarded by many as a major engine of productivity, some economists and politicians have voiced their alarm at the job losses as a result of the ICT innovations. Our reading of economic literature, which uses ICT proxies to fit empirical results to theoretical frameworks, suggests that despite a wealth of theoretical speculations and empirical evidence a consensus regarding the employment effect of ICT remains elusive.

The second report, “ICT Employment Statistics in Europe: Measurement Methodology (A. Sabadash) is a technical report on the assessment of recent developments in the definition of ICT employment in Europe and on the different methodologies used to capture ICT employment in macro- and microdata. It fills an important gap in the employment statistics literature: so far since, the International Labour Office has produced no official definition of ICT employment, and an appropriate definition is still under debate at Eurostat.

Within the analytical line, two reports are in progress and will be published in the beginning of this year. The first, “The Evolution of ICT employment in the EU in 2000-2001”, develops further a definition of ICT occupations and applies it to the EU Labour Force Survey data in order to take a snapshot of ICT employment developments in the EU in the recent decade. The report shows that over the period 2000-2012, the ICT labour market was characterised by a remarkable employment growth. While reflecting the general trend of the cyclical fluctuations in total employment, differently from the total employment, ICT employment growth never turned negative. ICT employment increased

not only in absolute figures but also as a share of total employment: from 1.6% in 2000 to 2.3% in 2012. As of our estimates, ICT employment reached 6 mln in 2012, with the most ICT-skilled workforce being employed in the business services (see graphics 1 and 2 below). The second report, “Employment effects of ICT at the firm-level,” investigates the employment dynamics in relation to ICT use in firms. This study contributes to the existing literature by using comparable microdata in 10 European countries and covering the period 2000-2010. ICT use is measured by

several novel indicators: a composite indicator for ICT intensity, a set of dummy variables that capture different types of ICT deployment, and the share of employees with broadband connection. This research benefits from the access to the unique micro-level data, which has been obtained by the IS Unit as a follow up of a longstanding collaboration with a succession of Eurostat-funded ESSNet Projects on linking of firm data on ICT use.

The first results of the latter study were presented at the Final Conference of the ESSLait on Linking of Micro-Data on ICT Usage in Rome on 14 – 16 October 2013. The objective of the conference was to take a snapshot of the main achievements of the micro-data linking, and to present analytical papers that have used the ESSLait data. Researchers from OECD, IPTS, National Statistical Offices and academia covered a variety of topics related to the use of ICT in firms: competition, productivity, export, innovation, reallocation, resilience and employment. A number of presentations focused on the merits the ESSLait micro-data and its application to policy making.

More information on the IS Unit Digital Economy webpages.Contact: Smarada Pantea, Bertin Martens

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Issue # 10 - December 2013

Ongoing activity of Patent intelligence for policy support at IPTS

Policy relevancePatent data is one of the most reliable and recognised sources of information on the technological dynamics and the resulting changes in the competitive environments. For over more than 5 years, the IS Unit in the JRC-IPTS has built competencies and tools in patent intelligence to support innovation policy responses to challenges that have both a socio-economic as well as a technological dimension.

The IS Unit makes use of PATSTAT, the EPO Worldwide Patent Statistical Database, to gather data from over 180 patent offices, developing and applying state-of-the-art methodologies to elaborate and match big datasets and build appropriate indicators. The IS Unit also exploits GIS systems and visualisation tools.

In ICT industry analysis, the vast amount of information available in patent data gives unique innovation-related insights on questions such as:

• Who? What companies, research institutions and universities develop new inventions and drive the technological progress?

• Where? What is the geography of innovation?• What? Which technologies are being developed?• When? What are the dynamics of the innovation

process?

The output of the analysis, mainly focused on ICT-related data, covers issues of Performance measurement, Internationalisation measurement,Technology mapping and Competitiveness analysis. They are visible in most of the IS Unit flagship reports, such as those of the EIPE and the

PREDICT research projects, which will contribute essentially to the analysis of the performance and developments of ICT innovation in EU of the EURIPIDIS project. The IS Unit also runs an annual international workshop for patents analysis practitioners, the 5th version of which took place in Seville in September 2013.

More information on the Patent Intelligence webpages. Contacts: Giuditta de Prato, Daniel Nepelski, Marc Bogdanowicz

Policy reportsThe Prospective Insights on R&D in ICT (PREDICT) reports

• Internationalisation of ICT R&D. An analysis of international patents and cross border patent fillings, G. De Prato and D. Nepelski, JRC Scientific and Technical Report (forthcoming).

• Patenting activity by top ICT R&D investors, G. De Prato and D. Nepelski, JRC S&T Report (forthcoming).• Internationalisation of ICT R&D, G. De Prato, D. Nepelski and J. Stancik, JRC S&T Report (2012).• Performance of ICT R&D, G. De Prato, D. Nepelski, W. Szewczyk, G. Turlea, JRC S&T Report (2012).• The 2011 report on R&D in ICT in the European Union, G. Turlea, D. Nepelski, G. De Prato, et al., JRC S&T

Report. • The 2010 report on R&D in ICT in the European Union, G. Turlea, D. Nepelski, G. De Prato, et al., JRC S&T

Report.

European ICT Poles of Excellence (EIPE) reports • European ICT Poles of Excellence: Mapping the European ICT Poles of Excellence. The Atlas of ICT

Activity in Europe. G. De Prato and D. Nepelski; Eds M. Bogdanowicz and Z. Kay, JRC Scientific and Technical Report (forthcoming).

• European ICT Poles of Excellence: Analysing the European ICT Poles of Excellence: Case studies of Inner London East, Paris, Kreisfreie Stadt Darmstadt, Dublin and Byen Kobenhavn, D. Nepelski and G. De Prato, Eds M. Bogdanowicz and Z. Kay, JRC Scientific and Technical Report (forthcoming).

Events• The Output of R&D activities: Harnessing the Power of Patents Data. Annual JRC-IPTS international

workshops (2009-2013).• Conference: Patent Statistic, Innovation management and IPR - “Innovation and Regulation in Digital

Services” Chair/ JRC-IPTS- Paris, 5th June 2012.

- Lessons from five years of experienceGlobal technological collaboration network

Source: De Prato, Giuditta & Nepelski, Daniel (2012). Global technological collaboration network. Network analysis of international co-inventions. Journal of Technology Transfer, 1-18.

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IS NEWS

European Poles of Excellence (EIPE)

Figure 1: Overview of the EIPE project

European ICT Poles of Excellence (EIPE), a joint research project of DG CNECT and the JRC IPTS, investigated the issues of growth, jobs and innovation, which have become the main priorities of the European Union’s growth strategy programme ‘Europe 2020’.

The overall objectives of the EIPE project were to set the general conceptual and methodological conditions for defining, identifying, analysing and monitoring the existence and progress of current and future EIPE in order to develop the capacity to clearly distinguish these among the many European ICT clusters, to observe their dynamics and to offer an analysis of their characteristics.

The EIPE project took place between 2010 and 2013. Over this time, it developed a tool based on a database of original ICT activity indicators, which was enriched with geographical information to allow localisation and aggregation at NUTS 3 level. The tool helps to answer questions such as:

• How is ICT R&D, innovation and economic activity distributed in Europe?

• Which locations are attracting new investments in the ICT sector?

• What is the position of individual European locations in the global network of ICT activity?

The EIPE project had four main steps: first, EIPE were defined. Then, a statistical methodology to identify EIPE was elaborated. Thirdly, an empirical mapping of EIPE was performed. Finally, an in-depth analysis of five NUTS 3 regions was undertaken. This work was documented in a series of four EIPE reports, as shown in Figure 1 below.

Boosting ICT Innovation in Europe:

The IS Unit has been working for almost a decade on a series of research projects that focused on the analysis of the EU ICT industry. For example: (i) analysis of the ICT industry and its R&D in the EU and beyond (REDICT, PREDICT, PREDICT2); (ii) identification of European “ICT Poles of Excellence” (EIPE), analysis of EU competitiveness in emerging ICTs (COMPLETE), or analysis of innovation and industrial policies in ICT and high-tech industries in the EU & US (INDPOL).

Building on this continuous research, and in order to reinforce understanding of innovation in the ICT sector and of ICT-enabled innovation in the rest of the economy, a new Administrative Arrangement was signed last August by DG CONNECT and JRC-IPTS for a 3-year research programme on European Innovation Policies for the Digital Shift (EURIPIDIS). The purpose of the EURIPIDIS project is to provide evidence-based support to the policies, instruments and measurement needs of DG CONNECT for enhancing ICT Innovation in Europe, as part of the Digital Agenda for Europe and of the ICT priority of Horizon 2020, paying particular attention to the improvement of the transfer of best research ideas to the market.

Enhancing ICT innovative production and use, reducing the ICT innovation gap between ICT R&D results and the market, and growing more innovative companies, are all solutions that can contribute to higher growth and lower unemployment. They are the core of the project.

EURIPIDIS will offer a unique opportunity to:• Better understand how ICT innovation works, both

at the level of actors such as firms, and at the level of the ICT “ innovation system” in the EU

• Assess the EU’s current ICT innovation performance, by attempting to measure ICT innovation in Europe and measuring the impact of existing policies and instruments (such as FP7 and Horizon 2020)

• Explore and suggest how policy makers could make ICT innovation in the EU work better

EURIPIDIS will in particular,• Explore and map the relations between the ICT

innovation system and the different innovation models of actors ranging from start-up to multi-national companies

• Identify drivers and barriers for the transfer of research ideas to the market

• Measure the EU’s ICT innovation performance and identify the role and position of Europe in the global landscape

• Analyse and assess the barriers and drivers for ICT innovation

• Investigate the innovative impact of FP7• Relate the analysed evidence about the ICT

innovation performance, process and gap to the conception, monitoring and evaluation of EU policies for ICT Research and Innovation

EURIPIDIS is run by the IS Unit of JRC-IPTS for and with Directorate F – Coordination of DG CONNECT, its Unit F2 – Innovation and also Unit F4 – Knowledge Base. The project will run until August 2016.

More infomation on the ICT Industry Analysis webpages. Contact: Paul Desruelle

New IS Unit research on Policies for the Digital Shift (EURIPIDIS)

continues on next page

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Issue # 10 - December 2013

Figure 3: ICT activity in Europe according to EIPE Composite Indicator

Figure 2: Empirical framework to identify ICT Poles of Excellence

According to the definition, EIPE are defined as follows:

European ICT Poles of Excellence are geographical agglomerations of best performing Information and Communication Technologies production, R&D and innovation activities, located in the European Union, that exert a central role in global international networks.

Following this definition, an empirical framework has been elaborated which is presented graphically in Figure 2 below.

High geographical concentration of ICT activity in EuropeOnly a very small number of EU regions had intensive ICT activity, and they are responsible for a large share of the total EU ICT activity (Figure 3). ICT excellence’s distribution is concentrated in a relatively small number of regions. About 86% of European regions score less than 20 in the EIPE indicator. Several regions in the same neighbourhood form larger areas of intensive ICT innovative activities, often including a 1st tier region. Half of the top 37 regions are made up of these agglomerations. The other half of the top 37 regions appear isolated (in geographical terms): mainly 8 capital cities, several important locations of ICT R&D and a few remaining regions.

Excellence builds on a high and balanced performance of all activities, i.e. ICT R&D, Innovation and Business, and in all

three characteristics: Agglomeration, Internationalisation and Networking. However, the small differences in performance of individual locations across the sub-indicators give some hints regarding the composition and details of the European ICT landscape. In particular, it shows how different and unique each location is and that all of them have their strengths and weaknesses.

Three regions with high performanceThree European NUTS 3 regions were identified as 1st tier regions, i.e. where the value of the EIPE Composite Indicator (EIPE CI) is above 80. These regions are: 1. München Kreisfreie Stadt (DE212), Germany (EIPE CI = 100) 2. Inner London East (UK12), UK (EIPE CI = 98), 3. Paris (FR101), France (EIPE CI = 96 The definition of EIPE and the methodology for their identification recognizes that ICT R&D&I activities are interlinked with ICT business activity: for an EIPE, none of these activities is likely to exist in vacuum. Instead, they are embedded in common spatially agglomerated industrial and business activity, supported and forming the fundament of inventive activity. There is a mutual inter-dependency between R&D, innovation and business activities, which implies that these are often co-located. This justifies the fact that the EIPE project focused on three activities, i.e. ICT R&D, ICT Innovation and ICT Business activity. In addition, acknowledging the importance of endowment and global position for the competitiveness of a location, the definition points to three characteristics of these activities, i.e. agglomeration, internationalisation and networking. This framework served to empirically identify European ICT Poles of Excellence and to map the European ICT landscape.

More information on the European ICT Poles of Excellence (EIPE) project and on all reports is available at: the IS Unit EIPE webpages.Contacts: Giuditta de Prato, Daniel Nepelski

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The EIPE international experts ‘workshop in Bangalore aimed to introduce a cross comparison of existing ICT clusters and to draw lessons from other regions, reviewing the key factors of success (and/or failure) of ICT R&D Poles of Excellence (EIPE) from the experience of the participants. In addition, it sought to better understand the real drivers of excellence in ICT R&D, by gathering the various views about the respective roles of businesses, entrepreneurs and policies. The main results of the research undertaken by the IS Unit in the project on current and future European ICT EIPEs were also presented.

During the workshop, the participants stressed their appreciation of both the methodology and the data the project has developed. The EIPE indicators were judged as extremely useful and interesting for the wealth of information they provide, and also for the different implications which their analysis reveals. A very useful discussion took place on the process of creating emerging poles of world-class excellence in ICT R&D, on the determinants and on the lessons which can be derived from the analysis of successful cases in Asia.

The invited speakers came from Australia, China, India, Indonesia and Taiwan. Each session brought together a policy maker or academic and a speaker from the industry for each country case. The meeting was introduced by a key note speech from Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala (Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai). Similar Workshops have been organized by IPTS in South Africa and Singapore in the past.

The lesson: success factors and public policiesMost countries have implemented some kind of cluster policy but there is no “miracle” solution in this field. Recipes for creating a cluster seem difficult to find. Education policies play a major role in all cases. Policies in India and Taiwan offer a highly contrasted approach to clusters, which can be summarized as follows: “India is volume”/ “Taiwan is government”. India seems to use a hands-off approach, “for

the better”, often rooted in its industrial past: Bangalore, for example, was a textile cluster. Taiwan, however, uses a hands-on approach with i m p r e s s i v e outputs. Taiwan is a world leader in a r a n g e o f i n f o r m a t i o n t e c h n o l o g y p r o d u c t s . Nevertheless in the case of India “something must have worked in the ecosystem” as IT has become the country’s innovation engine. ICT have had significant impact in several aspects of India’s economy and way of life. The sector will continue to play a major role. Today, India is a design-house for IT products where almost every International company locates its R&D center, and it also hosts independent design-services companies. However, India owns very few products, be they hardware or software. As a result, the country faces a major trade deficit, as its imports of electronic goods mount continuously, raising the question “How can India design and manufacture its own ICT products?”

Of the policies left to government, education policy has been an important one for enabling IT clusters. Both in the case of India and Taiwan, education plays a strong role which is in line with other country case analyzed during the EIPE project.

More information on the IS Unit EIPE webpages. Contact: Giuditta de Prato

Industrial clusters in Asia vs. European ICT Poles of Excellence: key factors and lessons for policy

The EIPE international experts ‘workshop in Bangalore

The EIPE international experts’ workshop was organised by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission in cooperation with Infosys and CPRSouth/CPR Africa in Bangalore, India, on 4 September 2013.

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Issue # 10 - December 2013

First map of e-Inclusion intermediary actors in the EU

The JRC-IPTS study “Mapping e-Inclusion Actors in the EU27” surveyed nearly 3,000 organisations from the public, third and private sector, which play a central role in fighting digital exclusion and developing employability. This study forms part of a larger project conducted by JRC-IPTS and DG CONNECT.

Using a computer and common office software competently has become a necessary skill to access the job market in the 21st century. About 85% of jobs in 2020 will require some sort of ICT skills, according to the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP). Moreover, there is an increasing shortage of ICT-skilled labour in Europe. Digital literacy and skills have become a pre-condition for employability. The lack of basic ICT skills in certain population groups and the need for affordable access in specific geographical areas are responsible in part for the digital exclusion of as many as 30% of Europeans.

The mapping of intermediary organisations which operate in the education, social and employment sectors and provide ICT training has produced the first ever assessment of the e-Inclusion intermediary sector, estimated at a total of 250,000 organisations (or one e-Inclusion actor for every 2,000 inhabitants).

The study, conducted in collaboration with Telecentre-Europe and the University of Washington Information School, shed light on the way e-Inclusion actors operate, by looking at the programmes and the services they provide, their funding, target groups and user data collection. Based on the evidence of this mapping exercise, 80% of the e-Inclusion organisations provide public access to computers, Internet and digital literacy training. Half of the organisations studied offer employment-related training such as online job seeking skills, applications, CV development, as well as use of social media and other collaborative software. These activities are at the heart of the Digital Agenda policy goals.

Local government funding is very important for e-Inclusion actors since almost 67% of organisations report this source as one of their top three. It is followed by national government funding (29%), European Union funding (25%), and usage/service fee revenue (22%). Almost 50% of the organisations have operating budgets of less than €100,000 and only 11% have budgets above €1 million.

Understanding the sector which provides digital training outside formal education can help policymakers to shape guidelines for a more inclusive labour market, one of the main goals of the European Commission’s Europe 2020 Strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.

In March 2013, the European Commission launched a Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs. This EU-wide multi-stakeholder partnership helps to address a shortfall in the number of European citizens with ICT professional skills and to exploit the employment creation potential of ICT. It will be a key European policy challenge to support the innovation processes created and the services provided by e-Inclusion organisations. Creating the conditions for a larger involvement of the private sector and strengthening the role of the e-Inclusion actors may prove essential to address the challenges of digital exclusion, employability and the shortage of ICT-skilled workers.

The report with final results of the survey was presented officially to policy makers at the High-Level Conference on eGovernment, organised by the Lithuanian Presidency of the EU Council in Vilnius, on 14-15 November 2013.

More information on the MIREIA research project webpageContacts: Gianluca Misuraca, Clara Centeno

The Crossover project, ‘Bridging Communities for Next Generation Policy Making’, was an FP-7 funded project, delivered by a partnership of which JRC-IPTS was one of the core partners. It came to an end with a final conference held at Trinity College inDublin that took place in parallel with the EU Digital Agenda Assembly this past 17th and 18th of June.

The International Conference on Policy Making 2.0 was organised by the CROSSOVER project in collaboration with UNDP, the Democratic Society (DemSoc) and EurActiv, and was attended by participants from Europe and the rest of the world.

The aim of the conference was to explore emerging technologies and trends that are changing the way policy-making is carried out, cross-fertilizing projects to support

Results from the MIREIA survey uncover the crucial role played by thousands of organisations in promoting digital inclusion and employability in Europe.

community building, and to learn from each other. Over two days many topics were discussed: open and big data, visual analytics, modelling and simulation, collaborative governance and crowdsourcing, serious gaming and opinion mining. Many of these issues were directly relevant to the International Research Roadmap on Policy Making 2.0 developed by CROSSOVER. The discussions between the researchers, practitioners and policy makers attending the conference and their first-hand experience helped to enrich this Roadmap.

The CROSSOVER Roadmap on Policy Making 2.0 has been inspired by the Research Roadmap on ICT for governance

... but the journey towards Policy Making 2.0 carries onproject has come to an end…

continues on next page

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IS NEWS

Policy Making 2.0 is a concept which refers to a blend of emerging and fast developing technologies that enable better, more timely and more participative decision-making in government.

Digital Games - exciting new ways to help professionals address social exclusion in health, education and community

Promoted by the rapid spread and growth of digital gaming across generations, there is increased interest in practice and research for the potential of digital games to be used in many non-leisure contexts such as education, community building and well-being.

A JRC-IPTS study, in collaboration with DG CONNECT, set out to understand the state of play of the use of digital games to support social inclusion and empowerment. It draws on a wide range of theoretical and empirical data, brought together for the first time in the final report: The Potential of Digital Games for Empowerment and Social Inclusion of Groups at Risk of Social and Economic Exclusion: Evidence and Opportunity for Policy (J. Stewart, L. Bleumers, J. Van Looy, I. Mariën, A. All, D. Schurmans, K. Willaert, F. De Grove, A. Jacobs, G. Misuraca. Editor: C. Centeno)

The report finds that the use of digital games – either special purpose games, commercial of the shelf games or game making, can and are being used in many contexts. Digital games work by facilitating learning and participation in multiple ways, especially by developing systems thinking skills, social skills and other ‘21st Century’ skills such as online collaboration and creative thinking. For young people in particular, the use of game-based approaches can provide a learning experience that is contemporary, engaging, personalised and safe – elements especially important for professionals working with groups at risk of exclusion, who often face multiple challenges.

Evidence is emerging pointing that game-based approaches are effective in areas such as combating school and training dropout, coping with chronic illness and helping migrant integration. However, there are also many barriers – development and use of digital game approaches is still an emerging field - despite at least 10 years of experience. In spite of professional and end user enthusiasm, interventions

with the socially excluded are often poorly funded, and there are a variety of barriers to effective innovation involving developers, intermediaries and users. A ‘serious’ games and gamification industry struggles to grow, even with considerable investment from the military, and in some areas of corporate training. Firms find it difficult to break into education and health markets,

where demands for high quality evidence of impact and procurement processes are obstacles to growth.

This highlights the need for policy action, related to goals of employment and growth, social inclusion and cohesion, and in improving public service delivery. The report looks at policy approaches and contexts from various countries and from the European Commission, and proposes a roadmap for stakeholder action, drawing on the results of three stakeholder and policy workshops held in 2012. A joined-up policy response with strong leadership to address the

and policy modelling produced in 2010 as a final outcome of the previous support action CROSSROAD – a participative Roadmap for ICT Research in Electronic Governance and Policy Modelling.

The JRC-IPTS was a corepartner in CROSSROAD contributing to the roadmap development as well as engagement and dissemination activities, and leading the work package on visionary scenario-design which produced the Report on Envisioning Digital Europe 2030: Scenarios for ICT in Future Governance and Policy Modelling. Thus, in CROSSOVER, JRC IPTS ensured that the updated Roadmap was coherent with the directions set out in the previous support action.

The final version of the Roadmap on Policy Making 2.0 can be downloaded from the project website, as well as all the other project deliverables, including the Report prepared by JRC-IPTS on ‘Case studies on specific applications of ICT-solutions for governance and policy modelling’.

The CROSSOVER project achieved its main goals: to consolidate and expand the community in the domain of ICT for governance and policy modelling, and to develop an International Roadmap on Policy Making 2.0. It was, however,

just one of the steps towards Policy Making 2.0 and the journey is not over.

The results from CROSSOVER will be used by another EC FP7-funded support action, eGovPolinet, which aims to continue building a global multidisciplinary digital governance and policy-modell ing research and practice community. eGovPolinet will carry on updating and enlarging Crossover’s virtual community on Policy Making 2.0, its knowledge base and the platform it developed.

If you are interested in contributing to the development of Policy Making 2.0, please join the Linkedin group.

For more information and the final report, please visit the CROSSOVER webpage. Contact: Gianluca Misuraca

The Inliving mobile game was used with face to face training to help young people make the transition to living in their own home, reducing the rate of fai led tenancies in a UK housing association.

image of digital games could encourage the emergence of good practice and help the development of a European industrial strength in game-based techniques across sectors.

JRC-IPTS presented the results of the study Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion (DG EI) at the Annual conference of the EC- supported Games and Learning Alliance (GALA) Network of Excellence at Dassault Systems in Paris.

More information at the IS Unit Digital Games webpage. See also related article at euriclid network.

Contact James Stewart, Clara Centeno

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Issue # 10 - December 2013

IPTS is currently finishing a study inspired by the concept of ‘crowdsourcing’ that explores emerging ways to organise, fund and conduct paid and unpaid work. Particular attention has been paid to four emerging services:

• online work exchanges, including crowdsourced microwork, and freelancers ‘in the cloud’

• crowdfunding, a new way to raise funds and build support for projects in business, the arts and community

• Internet-mediated volunteering that puts volunteers in touch with organisations to do face-to-face or online work

• reciprocal work exchanges, including time banks and local exchange trading schemes, that help to get people actively involved in the community and the local economy

These new services are showing considerable growth associated with globalisation, the sharing economy trends, the crisis and entrepreneurs exploiting the potential of technical and social innovation.

Six JRC reports on these emerging services have been produced by experts in the field.

These reports provide the results of in-depth qualitative research, undertaken for the first time, which focuses on the skills, motivations and working practices that are developing around these interlinked new forms of exchanges.

One of the key research findings is that these new platforms are used by all age groups, but particularly by more experienced and older people who have the skills and motivation to work independently in paid work or contribute as volunteers. The research shows that these platforms also provide new pathways into work and social and commercial entrepreneurship, but potential users need to be prepared with the skills to operate in environments that are online and often global.

These new trends also represent innovative ways of building trust, mediated by online platforms with new forms of online reputation. The input and feedback from ‘the crowd’ enables people to build working relationships or provide financial support to entrepreneurial projects with confidence. The report on crowdfunding states that this form of fundraising in particular changes the model of risk in investing, and combines fundraising with market building through more transparent mechanisms of social media. The report on time banks, however, highlights the limits of the use of technology in services that have up until now been designed to build communities and trust face to face. But even traditional time bank models are responding to the possibility of online and mobile services to improve organisation and immediacy, and thus empower their users and communities.

The research also finds that globalisation of freelance and contract labour through online work exchanges can give SMEs on-demand access to skills, e.g. in IT, from emerging economies. Online work exchanges also make possible the more flexible labour arrangements for many services that growing business require. Small businesses need to learn how to take advantage of this, and how to contract-in

The future of work - the crowd, the cloud and the emergence of new forms of paid and unpaid work

services from skilled and specialised professionals. While this may be good for business, competition from low-wage economies also raises questions for the future of wages in certain professions. Nonetheless, online work exchanges could make it easier for many people in Europe to work independently and flexibly and across borders. However, so far European workers and businesses have been slow to take advantage of this opportunity. Language and regulatory problems – around issues such as identity, self-employment status, etc. – create barriers to the adoption and promotion of this modern form of working. Similarly, volunteer organisations are only just starting to take advantage of online volunteering, and there is a widespread lack of awareness of the issues that need addressing and the opportunities.

The growth in diversity of work that can be contracted and delivered online raises important questions for labour market operation, and the flexibility and security of workers who may decide, or who are obliged, to work as freelancers. The research provides important lessons for the design of public services in employment, social inclusion and business support. The emerging services trends studied in this research are important examples of social innovation that change some fundamental relationships and concepts in work, both paid and unpaid. The investment and innovation in the new market and community models that integrate social media and online platforms possibilities have taken the use of IT well beyond what many public-sector services in these areas have to offer. Policy makers willing to take the opportunity of these developments therefore need to seriously engage with the new social and business actors leading these changes.

The reports are available on the IS Unit website and will be of interest to people working in a wide range of policy areas such as temporary work, youth employment and training, volunteering, entrepreneurship, self-employment, flexible working, skills policy, digital skills and access, SMEs and microenterprises, microfinance, financial regulation, social inclusion and public service delivery, flexicurity, welfare, and the Single Market in services and employment.

More information on the The future of Work webpages.Contacts: Clara Centeno

created with wordle.net

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IS NEWS

Technology helps us to be healthier and more independent in old age - scientific evidence shows

The research project on “ICT-AGE: long-term care strategies for the independent living of the elderly people”, commissioned by DG EMPL and carried out by the IS Unit Employability and Social Inclusion team will contribute to strategies to help the Member States to implement technology-based services to enable elderly people to live independently at home.

The first step towards this objective took place between May and December 2013. It consisted of mapping and then analysing technological services of this kind in and outside Europe. The services chosen had to have sound and reliable scientific evidence that they allow elderly people to live more

independently at home, help carers to be more productive and provide more qualified care, and save care systems money. A report with these results will be published in January 2014. JRC-IPTS carried out a systematic literature review using search terms related to the impact of technology-based services on the independent living of older adults at home. A search of the main databases (Web of Science, PubMed, Science Direct, etc.) produced around 350 publications, which we critically evaluated according to the potential replicability of the services they described.

This analysis identified 14 technology-based services, currently delivered by public or private sector providers, which are effective in helping elderly people to live independently at home with better quality of life. They also help carers to be more productive and deliver better assistance. These benefits result in a more cost-efficient provision of long-term care. As depicted in the figure below, these services are mainly: assistive- and home care technologies, telehealth, telecare, smart home, robots and serious gaming. They cover a wide range of care needs, from those of independent elderly people to those of people who have chronic diseases or limited mobility. One was a joint European initiative; the others took place in Sweden, France, the UK, Spain, the USA, Japan and Taiwan.

IL: Independent Living; CP: Productivity of Carers; QOL: Quality of Care Delivery; S: Sustainability.

JRC-IPTS is now carrying out 5 case studies on these good practices of ICT for independent living in order to find out how they were designed, developed, and implemented, and on how this contributed to their success. We are looking at their business cases and models, and other variables such as impact evaluation, what training was needed to use the technology, and the process of integration of technology into the existing delivery chain. First findings suggest that procedures vary according to the welfare regime in place in a given country, and that public/private partnerships may be created and different stakeholders used to achieve the integration of the service into the system and its acceptance.

A positive impact of the technology on the quality of life of the elderly also seems to be a relevant factor for these partnerships to support the development of these technology-based services. Training in the use of the technology for both the professionals and the end-users is also important. More details on how these variables were identified will be forthcoming as the study develops. These first results have been transferred to DG EMPL and to the Working Group on Ageing of the Social Protection Committee (SPC-AGE) of the European Commission for their next 2014 report on long-term care. These findings will provide the Member States and DG EMPL with evidence-based data to respond to the policy challenges outlined in the Social Investment Package on long-term care: i.e. to develop policies to contain growth in the needs of the elderly, ensure access to long-term care, secure the quality of care and maintain the financial sustainability of care delivery.

The research also contributes to the renewed Cohesion Policy for Europe which prioritises investment in growth and people, focusing mainly on investment in technology, creating employment and improving social inclusion in Europe.

More information at the ICT AGE webpage.Contact: Stephanie Carretero, Clara Centeno

# TECHNOLOGIES GOOD PRACTICE NAME LEVEL OF NEEDS COUNTRY

1 Assistive TechnologyIntelligent System For Independent Living And Self-Care Of Seniors With Cognitive Problems Or Mild Dementia (Isisemd)

Cognitive Impairment And Mild DementiaDK, FI, EL,

UK

2 Assistive Technology + Telecare Home Automation And Advanced Telecare (Esoppe Project) Frail Elderly People FR

3 Assistive Technology (Robot) Papero Dementia JP

4 Assistive Technology (Robot) Hal Frail Elderly People JP

5 Assistive Technology (Robot) Sas Elderly People With Low Walking Abilities JP

6 Smart Home X10 Activehomekit Elderly People With Chronic Conditions US

7 Technology – Based Health Care – Telehealth Taiwan's Telehealth Pilot Project Elderly People With Chronic Conditions And Their Carers TW

8 Technology – Based Health Care – Telehealth Kaiser-Permanente Tele-Home Health Research Project Elderly People With Chronic Conditions US

9 Technology – Based Health Care – Telehealth Telehealth (Whole System Demonstrator) Elderly People With Chronic Conditions UK

10 Technology – Based Health Care - Telemonitoring Careline H@Me And Pro Elderly People With Chronic Conditions SP

11 Technology-Based Home Care ActionElderly People With Chronic Conditions And Informal Carers

UK, IE, PT, SE

12 Technology-Based Home Care – Telecare West Lothian Telecare People Over 60 Years Old UK

13 Technology-Based Home Care - Telecare/Telehealth Scottish Telecare Programme All Elderly People UK

14 Technology- Based Wellness Services Brain Age All Elderly People JP

15

Issue # 10 - December 2013

‘Up-Scaling Creative Classrooms in Europe’ (SCALE CCR) Project - Key Outcomes

The project “Up-scaling Creative Classrooms in Europe” (SCALE CCR) was carried out by JRC-IPTS Information Society Unit from December 2011 to June 2013 under an Administrative Agreement with DG Education and Culture.

SCALE CCR had two main objectives. First, it sought to better understand the pedagogical, technological and organisational nature of ICT-enabled learning innovations that had already achieved significant scale and/or impact. It also made policy recommendations for their further development and mainstreaming across Europe.

1. Exploring the conditions for sustainability, scalability and systemic impact of ICT-enabled learning innovationsThe implementation strategies of seven innovative cases of ICT-enabled learning in Europe and Asia were analysed in depth to explore the conditions for sustainability, scalability and impact at system level.

These analyses were conducted by the SCALE CCR research team and well-known experts on cases from Asia and Europe (Nancy Law, Chee Kit Looi, Naomi Miyake, Seungyeon Han and Stefania Bocconi). The case reports authors used a common reporting template, which had been developed by the Centre of Information Technology in Education – University of Hong Kong – in collaboration with IPTS.

Then, a five-dimensional framework of ICT-enabled innovation for learning developed by JRC-IPTS was used to further analyse the seven cases, revealing that all of them....

• have reached significant scale and/or impact at system level

• incorporate technological, pedagogical and organisational innovations

• have followed multiple pathways to innovate and scale up

• are very diverse (this diversity is not only across but also within the cases)

• build on system level initiatives that started years ago following ‘ecological’ models of change

• foster multilevel, system-wide connectivity and strategic partnerships

• follow top-down strategies for supporting bottom-up innovations

• facilitate shared ownership for continuous innovation and sustainable change

2. Policy recommendations for mainstreaming ICT-enabled learning innovationsFurthermore, a set of 60 policy recommendations on the immediate strategies and actions were proposed, to be undertaken by policy- and educational decision-makers to further develop and mainstream ICT-enabled innovation at local, regional, national, and EU level. The proposed recommendations were clustered into seven policy areas, presenting a holistic agenda for ICT-enabled innovation for learning: Content and Curricula; Assessment; School Staff Professional Development; Research; Organisation and Leadership; Connectedness; and Infrastructure.

The JRC Scientific and Policy Report with the policy recommendations for further developing and mainstreaming ICT-enabled learning innovations has been released and synthesised in a poster format (see below).

More information at the SCALE CCR webpage.Contact: Panagiotis Kampilis, Yves Punie

Click on the image to enlarge

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IS NEWS

EC Communication on Opening up Education the IPTS Learning & Inclusion team contributes to the newly-launched communication

In September 2013, the European Commission launched a Communication, ‘Opening up Education,’ to boost innovation and digital skills in schools and universities. The Communication was jointly led by Androulla Vassiliou, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, and Neelie Kroes, Commission Vice-President, responsible for the Digital Agenda. It focused on three main areas: creating opportunities for organisations, teachers and learners to innovate; increasing the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) and creating better ICT infrastructure and connectivity in schools.

Initiatives linked to Opening up Education will be funded by Erasmus+, the new EU programme for education, training, youth and sport; Horizon 2020, the new research and innovation programme and the EU structural funds.

The JRC-IPTS Learning and Inclusion team has run a number of projects which contribute to the Communication and the accompanying Staff Working Document. One of these projects, Open Educational Resources in Europe, is directly mentioned in the Communication for “carrying out a comprehensive exercise of foresight scenarios for education in Europe 2030.” For this project, a series of expert workshops were organised during spring-summer 2013 to gather material on future scenarios in 2030 (see also our previous Newsletter). Part of this early work was presented to the public in a keynote speech at the “Open and Flexible Higher Education Conference 2013” in Paris in October 23. The keynote speech was accompanied by a paper which will be published under Gold Open Access in “Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning,” and will be available in early 2014.

The accompanying Commission Staff Working Document (SWD), the purpose of which is to analyse and map the use of new technologies and Open Educational Resources in EU education and training, included references to the following ten publications by the ICT Learning and Inclusion team:

• Learning in Informal Online Networks and Communities, K. Ala-Mutka.

• The Future of Learning: Preparing for Change. C. Redecker, M. Leis, M. Leendertse, Y. Punie, G. Gijsbers, P. Kirschner, S. Stoyanov, B. Hoogveld. Edited by C. Redecker & Y.Punie.

• ICT and Learning - results from PISA 2009, (pp. 28–42), F. Biagi, M. Loi

• Mapping and Analysing Prospective Technologies for Learning. Results from a consultation with European stakeholders and roadmaps for policy action. S. Aceto, S. Borotis, J. Devine, T. Fischer

• ICT-enabled innovation for learning in Europe and Asia - Exploring conditions for sustainability, scalability and impact at system level., P. Kampylis, N. Law, Y. Punie, S. Bocconi, B. Brečko, S. Han, C. Looi, N. Miyake

• The use of ICT for the Assessment of Key Competences, C. Redecker

• DIGCOMP: A framework for developing and understanding Digital Competence in Europe, A. Ferrari

• Overview and Analysis of 1:1 Learning Initiatives in Europe, A. Balanskat, D. Bannister, B. Hertz, E. Sigillò, R. Vuorikari. Edited by S. Bocconi, A. Balanskat, P. Kampylis, Y. Punie

• IPTS 2013: Literature Review on Employability, Inclusion and ICT, Report 2: ICT and Employability, M. de Hoyos, A. Green, S. Barnes, H. Behle, B. Baldauf, D. Owen. Edited by C. Centeno & J. Stewart.

• The Industry and Policy Context for Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion: Market Analysis, Future Prospects and Key Challenges in Videogames, Serious Games and Gamification, J. Stewart, G. Misuraca

Last but not least, two recently finished projects were also analysed and quoted. The first, “Up-Scaling Creative Classrooms in Europe,” looks at cases of successful ICT-enabled innovation for learning in both Europe and Asia, and the other was “Digital Competence: Identification and European-wide validation of its key components for all levels of learners”.

The future work of the Learning and Inclusion team will continue to support the actions proposed in the Communication.

More information at the Learning & Skills IS webpage.Contact: Yves Punie

Androulla Vassiliou, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth

Neelie Kroes, Commission Vice-President, responsible for the Digital Agenda

17

Issue # 10 - December 2013

DIGCOMP Developing and Understanding Digital Competence in Europe JRC-IPTS developed a Framework for Developing and Understanding Digital Competence in Europe on behalf of DG Education and Culture, as part of a project on Digital Competence (DIGCOMP). The framework provides detailed descriptions of all the competences that are necessary to be proficient in digital environments and describes them in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes.

The aim of the DIGCOMP project was to contribute to the better understanding and development of Digital Competence in Europe. The project, which was carried out between January 2011 and December 2012, had two major objectives:

• To identify the key components of Digital Competence in terms of the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to be digitally competent;

• To develop Digital Competence descriptors that will feed a conceptual framework and/or guidelines that can be validated at European level, taking into account relevant frameworks currently available.

The final report, “DIGCOMP: A Framework for Developing and Understanding Digital Competence in Europe”, on this framework was published in August 2013, listing 5 key competence areas: information, communication, content creation, safety and problem solving. For each of the key competence areas, several competences (21 all together) were identified. Each one is presented in a comprehensive table, which provides a short definition of the competence, descriptors for three proficiency levels, examples of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to the competence,

and examples of how the competence could be applied to specific purposes. The framework also provides a self-assessment grid for mapping digital competence levels.

Policy implications:The framework has been used as support to policy in the following instances:

• It was endorsed by the EAC Thematic Working Group on ICT and Education which represents the Member States’ Ministries of Education, as a guideline for curricula development and teacher professional development.

• It was adopted as an input to Action 62 of the Digital Agenda on proposing EU-wide indictors of digital competence.

• It has also been accepted as a framework for data collection on e-skills in Eurostat’s household survey on ICT usage by individuals in their 2015 study.

• an action in COM (2013) 654 final, on Opening Up Education: Innovative teaching and learning for all through new technologies and open educational resources confirms that the Commission will, in cooperation with stakeholders and Member States, test the digital competence framework with a view to supporting full implementation of the framework and the future development of an EU self-assessment tool for digital competences.

More information on the DIGCOMP webpage.Contact: Barbara N. Brečko, Yves Punie

Events23 January 2014, Brussels. 7th International CDPD Conference. Organisation and participation in the panel “Nudging Internet citizens: lessons from behavioural studies on online privacy.”21 January. Visit of Political Advisors of the Norweigan Parliament. 12-13 December 2013, Media & Learning 2013 Conference, Brussels, Belgium. Closing plenary keynote by Yves Punie on ICT-enabled innovation for Learning in Europe and Asia: Exploring conditions for sustainability, scalability and impact at system level4-5 December 2013, Evolution of Video Games Industry’s Ecosystems, Paris, France. With the participation of Giuditta de Prato. 25 November 2013, 2nd Conference of Partners on European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing. Brussels, Belgium.24-25 October 2013, The Open and Flexible Higher Education Conference 2013, Paris, France. Keynote by Yves Punie on Imagining Open Education 2030: Towards a new ecosystem for Higher Education?19-20 September 2013, IS Unit’s 5th Workshop “The Output of R&D activities: Harnessing the Power of Patents Data”, Seville, Spain. 4-16 October 2013, Conference of the ESSLait on Linking of Micro-Data on ICT Usage, Rome, Italy.23-25 October 2013, Games and Learning Alliance (GALA) NOE Conference. Paris, France. With the particpation of James Stewart.

6th March 2014 - ICT Key Enabling Technologies: Exploratory Study on Potential of EU ICT KETs Research Workshop. Brussels. 7th March 2014, Brussels - European Poles of Excellence International Experts Workshop. The objective of the workshop, co-organized by DG Connect and JRC-IPTS is to present the results of the project, discuss their policy relevance and formulate potential policy implications.10-15th March 2014 - Open Education Week . With the participation Andreia Santos from the ICT for Learning Skills and OER Team.

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MISSION of the IS Unit of JRC-IPTSTo provide quantitative and qualitative socio-economic research in support to EU policy-makers implementing the EU2020 initiatives relating to the Digital Economy, Digital Living and Digital Society as well as the wider deployment of information and communication technologies in future EU learning policies, digital competence, social inclusion and cohesion, e-health and electronic identity.

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The IS News is a bi-annual publication of the JRC-IPTS IS Unit intended to provide information on the Unit’s research activities, events and latest publications.

IS Unit - latest publications• Mapping and analysing prospective technologies for learning. Results from a consultation with European stakeholders

and roadmaps for policy action. S. Aceto, S. Borotis, J. Devine, T. Fischer. Editors: P. Kampylis, Y. Punie. JRC Scientific and Policy Report, January 2014.

• Monitoring and Assessment Framework for the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (MAFEIP) - Work Package 2 – Deliverable 2.1: Interim Report on the defined process indicators. F. Abadie, M. Lluch, R. Sabes-Figuera, B. Zamora. J. JRC Scientific and Policy Report, December 2013.

• European Hospital Survey: Benchmarking deployment of e-Health services (2012–2013) – Methodological Report. M. Deidda, F. Lupiáñez-Villanueva, I. Maghiros. JRC Scientific and Policy Report, December 2013.

• European Hospital Survey: Benchmarking Deployment of e-Health Services (2012–2013) - Composite Indicators on eHealth Deployment and on Availability and Use of eHealth Functionalities. R. Sabes-Figuera, I. Maghiros. Editor: F. Abadie. JRC Scientific and Policy Report, December 2013.

• European Hospital Survey: Benchmarking deployment of e-Health services (2012–2013) – Country Reports. R. Sabes-Figuera. Editor: F. Abadie. JRC Scientific and Policy Report, December 2013.

• Monitoring and Assessment Framework for the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (MAFEIP). Work Package 1 – Deliverable 1.1, Inception Report. I. Maghiros, F. Abadie, M. Lluch, R. Sabes-Figuera, E. Villalba, B. Zamora. Scientific and Policy Report, December 2013.

• European Hospital Survey: Benchmarking Deployment of eHealth Services (2012 – 2013). Synthesis of Outcomes. R. Sabes-Figuera, I. Maghiros. Editor: F. Abadie. JRC Scientific and Policy Report, December 2013.

• CrowdEmploy Crowdsourcing Case Studies: An Empirical Investigation into the Impact of Crowdsourcing on Employability. A. Green, M. de Hoyos, S. Barnes, B. Baldauf, H. Behle. Editor: J. Stewart. JRC Technical Report, December 2013.

• Assessing the Benefits of Social Networks for Organizations: Report on the Second Phase of the SEA-SoNS Project. M. Batikas, R. van Bavel . JRC Scientific and Policy Report, December 2013.

• ICT Employment Statistics in Europe: Measurement Methodology. A. Sabadash. JRC Technical Report, December 2013.

• Survey on eInclusion Actors in the EU27. G. Rissola, M. Garrido. Editors: C. Torrecillas, C. Centeno, G. Misuraca. JRC Scientific and Policy Report, November 2013.

• Investigation of ICT Firms’ Decisions on R&D Investment. W. Szewczyk, J. Stančík, M. A. Christensen. JRC Scientific and Policy Report, November 2013.

• ICT-induced Technological Progress and Employment: a Happy Marriage or a Dangerous Liaison? A Literature Review. A. Sabadash. JRC Technical Report, October 2013.

• Mapping and Analysing Prospective Technologies for Learning: Results from a consultation with European stakeholders and roadmaps for policy action. S. Aceto, S. Borotis, J. Devine, T. Fischer. Editors: P. Kampylis, Y. Punie. JRC Scientific and Policy Report, September 2013.

• The Potential of Digital Games for Empowerment and Social Inclusion of Groups at Risk of Social and Economic Exclusion: Evidence and Opportunity for Policy. J. Stewart, L. Bleumers, J. Van Looy, I. Mariën, A. All, D. Schurmans, K. Willaert, F. De Grove, A. Jacobs, G. Misuraca. Editor: Clara Centeno. JRC Scientific and Policy Report, September 2013.