Future Outlook on the Information Society in New European Member States and Candidate Countries: The integration of the New European Member States: the contribution of ICT strategies and technologies
Summary of the Conference Proceedings

The conference was organised at the Krynica Economic Forum 2005 by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (European Commission) and ICEG European Center (Budapest, Hungary). The conference moderated by Professor Jean Claude Burgelman (Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, DG JRC) was based on past and current research about Information Society developments in an Enlarged Europe. The successive presentations and debates aimed at better understanding and identifying Information Society strategies for the European countries that would support their economic and social development towards the “Lisbon objectives”.

The session addressed the question of the development trajectories of the New European Member States and Candidate Countries towards the Knowledge Society, taking into account both the specificities in initial conditions and the changing global context. The object was to reach useful guidelines to enrich future orientations in research and political strategies at national and European level, with special attention to the role of ICT.

The first keynote speaker in the morning session was Professor M. Kleiber (Minister of Science and Information Society Technologies of Poland). In his presentation he discussed the key lessons drawn from the recent history of the Information Society in Poland, with a specific focus on the political aspects that encompass such transformation. His presentation described the major steps of the evolution of IS policy in his country, the recent progress and the remaining obstacles and challenges. His presentation gave a detailed SWOT analysis on the state of information economy and society in Poland.

Prof. Carlota Perez (Cambridge and Sussex Universities) described big waves of technological changes that shaped technology progress in recent centuries. She assessed the impact of the spread of information and communication technologies on the economic structures, pointed to those factors of the economy, technological changes that make current technological revolution and spread of ICT different from the previous one. Her presentation presented the lessons drawn from the historical patterns of diffusion of technological revolutions in order to identify and understand the likely place of ICT in our societies in the next couple of decades. The presentation also gave criteria to guide decision-making in R&D and innovation policy both in the shorter and the longer-term, at corporate sector and national government levels.

The next presentation was given by M. Piatkowski (International Monetary Fund, USA, and TIGER, Poland). In his presentation Mr. Piatkowski stressed that recent studies suggest that the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on GDP and labour productivity growth in New Europe can be substantial. He provided empirical evidence about its contribution in the New Member States and other Eastern European countries. His presentation mentioned that notwithstanding this contribution, the full potential of ICT is still far from being utilized. In order to change their current contribtuion active ICT policies, particularly focused on promoting ICT diffusion on the industry-level and in the public sector, are crucial and they can close the gap between the potential and the reality.

The first afternoon session focused on the future evolution of technologies and the visions related to their spread as well as on the two key areas of ICT application, eHealth and eGovernment. In the first presentation, Ms Corina Pascu (Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, DG JRC) described the results of the recently accomplished project called FISTERA (Foresight on Information Technologies in the European Research Area). FISTERA is a network of the national foresight exercises around the Enlarged Europe that has produced wealth of information about the future of the Information Society, available at http://fistera.jrc.es/. In her presentation Ms. Pascu described the main findings of the project, the emerged scenarios and visions concerning the evolution of the technology in the future.

The second presentation delivered by Dr. M. Cabrera, (Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, DG JRC) described the evolution of eHealth. EHealth is seen today as one of the most rapidly growing and dynamic area of e-services, at the crossroad of technological change, reengineering of public expenditures, privatisation trends, high-tech medical knowledge, etc. Dr M. Cabrera gave in his presentation a detailed overview of ongoing projects, trends and challenges, described the special issues facing the New Member States in eHealth development and discussed how these changes might affect Europe.

Finally, Dr. Jaroslav Berce (Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, DG JRC) gave a presentation on the evolution of the eGovernment in the European Union and their major challenges in the New Member States. His presentation stressed that eGovernment appears to be a major opportunity for the NMS to boost the emergence of the Information Society as the public sector is a major customer and a unique partner. At the same time the development of eGovernment also challenges current views about government and public services, and future visions of eGovernment increase their user centric attitude.

In the final session, Dr. Pal Gaspar ( ICEG European Center) gave a presentation about the progress and changing factors affecting the emergence of an Information Society in the NMS countries. His presentation reviewed the recent evolution of the Information Society indicators in the eight New Member States (NMS) and the factors shaping the speed, structure of their evolution. The presentation stressed the lags between the NMS and the EU-15 average levels and particular attention was devoted to the analysis of factors that affect Information Society developments in NMS countries in ways different from old member states.

In the next presentation Ilkka Tuomi (Meaning Processing Ltd, Finland) spoke about the ways knowlesdge and innovation are generated in the information siociety. Accroding to the presenter, in the innovation-based network economy, social institutions and practices are in a constant flux. As a result, the Schumpeterian long-wave model of economic development may break down. To successfully adapt to the recent changes in the age of the Internet, the model has to be redefined at three levels of innovation: diversified social activity, goal-oriented action and design, and use of technologies. According to Mr. Tuomi, information society technologies are unique as they profoundly influence all these layers and different policy approaches are appropriate for each of them.

The final presentation was delivered by Professor Eric Reinert (Tallinn University of Technology and Other Canon Foundation, Norway) on the techno-economic paradigms, activity-specific economic growth and context-specific policies. In his presentation Mr. Reinert described those economic fallacies that may derail the economic integration of the New Member States. His presentation has partly focused on the general issues of integration and convergence and on the special questions related to the ICT sector in these countries.