Fabio Colasanti, director general, Information Society, at the European Commission is convinced that information and communications technology (ICT) is a key driver in improving European productivity and economic growth. “In Europe, almost 40% of the productivity growth in the last ten years was due to ICT,” claims Colasanti. He also points to evidence suggesting that “Europe’s productivity gap with the US is to large extent explained by its weaker investment in ICT.”
Stimulating research across the EU
Given these concerns, it is not surprising that the largest chunk of the EC’s current framework research programme (FP6) has been sunk into ICT. In 2003, 420 proposals were selected for funding, covering essential technology components and their integration into various application contexts. Together, these proposals received around 1.7 billion euros of EU funding. Colasanti says that only 16.5% of the money was aimed at SMEs across Europe, widely regarded as the engine room for growth, with more effort needed to get SMEs to the point where they could take advantage of such funding.
According to Colasanti, the main areas for ICT research investment have been chosen to build on Europe’s existing strengths and market leadership in areas such as mobile and wireless systems, micro and nano-electronics, and business software. The intention is to bring together academic researchers, enterprises and government organisations across Europe to create a European Research Area (ERA) so that Europe can master these vital technologies, rather than simply import them.
Number of FP6 investments in new technologies
Software/distributed systems: 52
Knowledge management: 74
Content authoring: 33
Trust/security: 33
Internet protocol: 9
Network management: 8
Mobile/wireless: 54
Electronics: 31
Visualisation: 39
Bio-, neuroinformatics: 2
Language/speech: 6
Number of FP6 investments in Market Applications
Finance/insurance: 3
Publishing/media: 34
Culture/tourism: 35
Administrations: 31
Health/social services: 33
Education/training: 39
Energy: 1
Environment: 12
Transport: 35
Electronics/IT manufacturing: 37
Telco services: 30
Chemicals: 1
Textile/clothing: 7
Biosciences: 3
Building/engineering: 1
Exchange of information: 52
E-business: 47
The figures show the number of ICT-related research investments funded by the FP6 work programme, as of September 2004.
Source: Directorate General, Information Society, European Commission
Present hurdles
Funding ICT research has long-term implications for the future of the European economy – and is good news for the many British universities and enterprises that secure this sort of funding - but there are current roadblocks that impact the spread of the information economy that the Lisbon agenda is predicated on. Two of the most significant hurdles are the regulatory framework for e-business in the member states and the need for overhauling the public sector which remains in urgent need of modernisation.
I will explore these ideas in later blogs.
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