2.10.3. Information and communication technologies

 

The process of innovation and profusion of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) constitutes a radical transformation of the means of production, distribution and exchange. It has already profoundly affected international trade and investment, the movement of capital and labour and work processes and products, and has accelerated the shift towards services and their outsourcing internationally (ILO, 2006). Moreover, the speed with which information flows from one part to another part of the world has dramatically changed social, institutional and diplomatic relations and the perspective of earth as a “common village” is becoming more and more real. 6 The direct employment effects of ICTs are, on the one hand, new jobs created in producing and delivering new products and services and on the other, the loss of jobs in redundant technologies or in companies that fail to keep up with their competitors’ rate of innovation. Indirect effects include the impact of technological change on productivity, skill requirements and associated organisational adaptation (Freeman, et al, 1995) 7.The process of structural change driven by competition and new technologies is often described as “creative destruction”

 

Community policies for the digital economy have developed rapidly over the last decade. In particular, the Europe 2005 Action Plan targeted a dynamic e-Business environment and pursued a package of measures in relation to e-skills, interoperability, trust & confidence, SME take-up and regulatory reforms. The e-Europe 2005 Action Plan has now been superseded by the i2010 strategy, which forms the information society component of the renewed Lisbon strategy to boost European competitiveness. The i2010 programme is a comprehensive strategy for deploying and modernising EU policy instruments to encourage the development of the digital economy (information society and enterprise: linking European Policies, 2006). From a business perspective, the key measures under the i2010 programme include:

 

A review of e-Business policies and trends and assessment of the need for additional policy measures to remove regulatory, organisational and legal obstacles to the take-up of ICT and e-Business.

Review of standardisation for ICT.

Analysis of the possible application of the public procurement directives to pre-commercial procurement and the procurement of innovation for the uptake of R&D.

Launching of a public debate on radio frequency identification (RFID) and issuing of policy proposals.

 

Adding to the initiatives under i2010 is the review of the competitiveness of Europe’s ICT sector within the ICT Task-Force, which will subsequently be considered by forums including the i2010 High-Level Group.

 

Under the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), one of the main themes has been enterprise networking. Key areas for research included: dynamic collaborative business networks; interoperability of enterprise software, applications and processes; new intelligent and networked products; and digital business ecosystems.

 

Another key theme was the development of next generation collaborative working environments as a basis for increasing creativity and boosting innovation and productivity. These environments should provide collaboration services to allow for the development of worker-centric, flexible, scalable and adaptable tools and applications.

 

Projects relevant for enterprise and industry are also found across a number of other FP6 research areas, in particular under the Strategic Objectives:

 

-         Towards a global dependability and security framework

-         Advanced Grid technologies, systems and services.

-         Embedded systems.

-         Software and services.

-         Semantic-based knowledge and content systems.

 

Other activities included are:

 

The e-Ten Programme, concerned with the large-scale roll-out of public interest services, primarily in support of the 2010 programme initiative. Some of these services relate to access to business information or to administrations’ interactions with business, as well as work-related training and skills. Relevant projects are found under the e-Ten action lines on e-Government, e-Learning, eInclusion and SME services.

 

E-Contentplus (2005-2008) supports the development of multilingual content for innovative, online services across the EU. This information can often provide a basis for new or improved e-Business services, including applications in industry sectors. The Programme promotes leading-edge technical solutions to improve accessibility and usability of digital material in a multilingual environment, including pan-European services, information infrastructures and showcases.

 

ICT Policy Support Programme, part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP), will build on the e-Ten and e-Contentplus programmes and will support the aims of i2010, the new integrated strategy to boost Europe’s digital economy. With a budget of €728 million, it will stimulate converging markets for electronic networks, media content and digital technologies, test new solutions to speed up the deployment of electronic services, and support modernisation of the European public sector.

 

The developments occurred in the information and communication technologies has allowed the delivering of a number of health-related actions and services. New health-related tools include:

 

Electronic health cards. Building on the agreement at the Barcelona European Council that a European health insurance card should replace paper based forms needed for health treatment in another Member State. The Commission intends to support a common approach to patient identifiers and electronic health record architecture through standardisation and supports the exchange of good practices on possible additional functionalities, such as medical emergency data and secure access to personal health information.

 

Health information networks. Member States should develop health information networks between points of care (hospitals, laboratories and homes) with broadband connectivity where relevant. In parallel, the Commission intends to set up European-wide information networks of public health data and co-ordinate actions for Europe-wide rapid reactions to health threats.

 

On-line health services. Commission and Member States will ensure that on-line health services are provided to citizens (e.g. information on healthy living and illness prevention, electronic health records, teleconsultation, e-reimbursement). Some of the health and related preventative services (e.g. air and water quality on-line information) could be expanded at trans-European level through the e-TEN programme. The Commission will monitor actions taken by Member States to make health information as accessible as possible to citizens as well as initiatives to implement quality criteria for websites.

 

Health Telematics. The High Level Committee on Health established a Working Group on Health Telematics to review the introduction of information and communications technology (ICT) in the health sector, the factors promoting or inhibiting its development, and areas where Community legislation could be beneficial. The Group considered particular applications of ICT in health, namely health cards, virtual hospitals and provision of health-related information to health professionals and patients.

 

Activities under the Research Framework Programmes. Many of the projects supported by DG Information Society under the EU Research Framework programmes are of direct interest to DG Health and Consumer Protection's policy work. Information on these can be accessed through DG Information Society’s homepage.