Tag: information technology - IT

The recently agreed new Regulation on EU Standardisation – and a new multistakeholder platform - represent a milestone for the ICT sector and a good result for the Danish presidency, say Jean Laurens and Rebekka Porath.

Small companies in Europe are unsurprisingly behind larger firms when it comes to applying modern IT services and advanced e-finance methods – adding to the overall gap in productivity. Yet adopting online banking can be an important first step, writes Thomas Meyer, managing director of Deutsche Bank (DB) Research, in a May report.

A leading French expert in technology transfer has highlighted research partnerships with SMEs as an efficient way to bring innovative new products to market. In an interview with EurActiv, Dr Bruno Sportisse, from the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA), said working with SMEs may be challenging but can have a major impact.

"It is up to corporate and government strategists to exploit the potential of 'green IT'," argues Stefan Heng, a researcher at Deutsche Bank, in a February paper.

Despite Europe leading the United States in the application of digital technologies, it is still far behind in overall economic productivity, argues Robert Atkinson, the president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, in the summer edition of Europe's World.

Dialogue between big companies and research organisations should be improved in order to boost the EU's innovation potential, argues Michel Cosnard from the French national institute for research in computer science (INRIA).

The Commission will propose in 2008 a range of measures to increase the use of ICT in the fight against climate change and energy waste. There are also plans on the table to introduce compulsory public procurement standards, said Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding.

Establishing electronic health records and connecting the information with hospital and remote environments such as the physician's office and private homes should be the top priorities for improving the quality of healthcare over the next two years, according to senior healthcare professionals.

A task force representing all sectors of the industry, academics, consumer advocates and trade unionists will draft a report on how to foster the growth of Europe's Information and Communication Technology industry.

A new type of smart card has won one of the three prestigious European IST prizes for innovation in the information technology field.

This CEPS paper poses the question of whether IT – as often alleged – is really the only cause for the EU’s productivity slowdown and it argues that the slowdown comes from a reduction of non-IT capital deepening.

The International Council for Science (ICSU) has released an agenda for action on science in the information society for preparation of the World Summit on Information Society to be held in December 2003.

There is an oft-perceived overload of information about all things EU, and yet it is widely acknowledged that citizens are not well informed about the Union's - and thus their own - affairs. The independent watchdog group Euro Citizen Action Service (ECAS) is now set to subject the Commission's information and communication policy to critical scrutiny.

On 2 July, the Commission adopted its communication on a new strategy for its information and communication policy. The proposal foresees a more active role for the Member States to disseminate information on the Union.