Posts filed under 'Europe'
Together with Michael Mürling, I organised a workshop on behalf of Forschung Austria at the Alpbach Technology Forum. It’s theme was “Digital Cities of Tomorrow“.
The workshop was motivated by the fact that we are living in the age of cities: estimations suggest that by the year 2050 over 70 % of the world’s population will be living in cities (BTW: in many countries in Europe we had the moment of urbanisation already in the 1950s). There are many open issues and research questions related to this development, from urban development, transportation and economic development to social services, healthcare, energy, public safety, education and more.
In general the participants (30 overall) agreed that overall the objectives towards smart cities are driven by factors such as sustainability, energy efficiency, high quality of life, safety & security, etc. and that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) will (only) serve as enabling technology. Amongst the services that ICT could offer several aspects were mentioned:
- visualization as a communication tool between different parties
- geographic information systems for handling spatio-temporal data
- semantic interoperability of the various data sources to allow a standardized processing
- open data policies enabling communities to create low-cost services
- real-time systems for managing and monitoring huge data volumes in a near real-time manner
- simulation and prediction to enable decisions by stakeholders in a timely manner
- as well as the possibility for new business models enabled by digitized processes.
At the same time the participants pointed out the need to address the vulnerability of connected services e.g. smart meters and to consider the privacy of customers and to take into account the threats post by decentralized autonomous systems.
As a conclusion there was a consensus that technology-only approaches towards smarter cities will not be sufficient to realize these cities. As a basis a holistic approach is needed, considering the different cultures, the willingness to experiment – especially at the level of decision makers -, the constraints in public funding and most prominently the interaction with the citizens (e.g. crowd intelligence, inclusion of local knowledge, open innovation, modern lifestyles of digital natives).
Further details at www.forschungaustria.ac.at
August 26th, 2011
Published today (Aug. 24, 2011): Andreas Meier and myself edited an HMD issue on “Communitys im Web” (in German).
It includes an objection by Matias Roskos who critically comments on crowdsourcing and the contribution by “others” (where we all benefit from).
And: besides technical and research papers it also addresses the issue of the knowledge society and how we can deal with relevant issues such as privacy, etc. IMHO the issue of a knowledge policy is a crucial one: we need to define rules, principles, guidelines, legislation, infrastructure, etc. for dealing with knowledge.
Some pointers
August 23rd, 2011
Yet another booklet on “mega trends 2020+” has been published. This one is by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants and it describes 7 mega trends (1. changing demographics; 2. globalization and future markets; 3. scarcity of resources; 4. the challenge of climate change; 5. dynamic technology and innovation; 6. global knowledge society; 7. sharing global responsibility) and 21 subtrends (too many to name them explicitly here).
What I personally like about this publication: it is well argued which methodology they use and how they derive the trends; they refer to urbanisation (on the global level – here in Europe we are mostly urbanised since the 1950s) – this is in line with many other scenarios, e.g. also Matthias Horx; also, they explicitly name the “war for talent” as an issue; and furthermore, there is an argumentation which corporate actions are to be taken to address the individual trends.
But still: it is just another (mega) trend publication. So, if you need other arguments for your lecture, for arguing specific business cases, your personal scenarios, etc. have a look for instance at
I am sure your there is mega trend or at least subtrend that fits your purposes …
August 23rd, 2011
Some guys, mainly from Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany, founded the Journal of unsolved questions.
What I like about it: they also except research papers that describe research that has “failed”, i.e., did not (yet) lead to the results expected. I think we need more of this! Why? Because most (all?) of the research projects we do are doomed to success. But how can that be, given the fact that all research activities include risk and that risk is typically taken over by the public. We call that “funding” and sometimes we receive 75 % funding (see for instance the current European Framework Programme). Consequently, a certain percentage of research projects would need to fail – if research were so perfectly calculable, one could go to the next bank office and ask one’s bank of choice to provide the money (at least for applied research that would be the case).
I am not arguing for inferior project management. This has to be top/professional! But the research activities as such are risky and sometimes risk factors will apply. We – as a research community and also the funding agencies – need to be more honest. So: let your research project fail!
August 11th, 2011
On behalf of Austria’s ministry of science and research, Technopolis has conducted a study on the impact of EU research initiatives. Accompanying text and the study itself are available on the ERA portal. The main goal of the study was to provide recommendations on the quality and relevance of support services (with respect to FP8).
Some main findings of the study:
- the main motivation for participation in FP7 is money. Researchers participate despite the complexity of the programme, administrative hurdles and low acceptance rates because there are (almost) no alternatives for international research. And there was a trend towards professionalisation (due to the increasing competition).
- FP7 projects support network building and reputation, they also improve know-how and technical skills. (But) radical innovations cannot be expected.
- for universities, the framework programmes are an important platform for supporting young academics
- with respect to additionality, FFG-EIP (European and International Programmes) should focus on newcomers in the “market”
These findings are not completely new – still they are evidence of what one often feels and thinks (anyway). So there is still value in it
March 17th, 2011
On voxeu.org I came across this interesting article by Jeremia Dittmar on the growth of cities its relationship with the development of the printed press. The argument basically is: those cities that adopted the printing press had higher growth rates, i.e., a faster growth in population and subsequently a better economic development.
For the current (mega-)trend towards cities (in the 21st century – by 2050 70 % of the world’s population will be living in cities), this could mean that information and communication technology (so to say: the Internet as the successor of the printing press) is the basis for future prosperity. But then: we also now that a creative milieu, the youth of the population, openness towards immigrants/and or new ideas are part of future city development.
The Diffusion of the Movable Type Printing Press in Europe, 1450 – 1500, by Jeremia Dittmar, available on voxeu.org:
Some interesting quotes in the article by Jeremia Dittmar:
- The figure above gives an overview of the adoption of the printing press. Interestingly, the U.K. is sparsely populated, also, it seems that northern Italy is a real hotspot in 1500 (besides the Netherlands).
- the growth argument in the article says, that those cities that adopted the printing press, had an advantage in growth of the population – against the other cities – of 21 points (1500 – 1600).
- the reason for this could be that the diffusion was still difficult (the technology was almost kept proprietary for over a century, books were heavy) and thus the geographic coverage was limited. This in combination with positive spillovers (creative, intelligent, young people were attracted) finally led to growth. More concrete, the availability of books on arithmetic basics was key to trading countries and regions such as Portugal, northern Italy, etc. (in order to calculate exchange rates, profit shares, interest rates, etc.).
February 23rd, 2011
There is a scientific argument – one might even say “dispute” – in the Information Systems Research Community (Wirtschaftsinformatik in German). The argumentation is driven by the fact that the European (mainly German and Scandinavian) tradition of Information Systems Research argue that IT-systems need to provide a benefit for the users. The American argument – mostly driven by American business schools – is geared more towards the scientifically based description of how IT-systems work and what properties they have (following a behaviouristic approach). One might say that this is targeted towards existing (historic) systems and not towards new, innovative solutions.
The issue from a researchers’ perspective is that – as in most other domains – the leading international journals are American and as they follow the behaviouristic approach it is difficult for European researchers to get their papers accepted. And to pursue a successful academic career it needs papers …
This issue is addressed in a “Memorandum zur gestaltungsorientierten Wirtschaftsinformatik” published by Hubert Österle, Jörg Becker, Ulrich Frank, Thomas Hess, Dimitris Karagiannis, Helmut Krcmar, Peter Loos, Peter Mertens, Andreas Oberweis, Elmar J. Sinz and signed by many others. You can find it at
http://www.dke.at/fileadmin/DKEHP/Repository/Memorandum__GWI_2010-03-08.pdf.
In their memorandum, the authors argue for the following phases/activities in Information Systems Research:
- Analysis: problem description, state of the art, research plan, selection of those factors that are relevant for the problem. Polls, surveys, case studies, interviews, etc. are the methods be used
- Conceptual design: construction of the artefacts folowing established methods, etc.
- Building prototypes, demonstrators, etc.
- Evaluation: checking whether the artefacts meet the objectives, experiments, simulation, field experiments, etc.
- Diffusion: dissemination of results, papers, course books, lectures, demos, spin-offs, etc.
Well worth reading!
November 5th, 2010
From May 20-21 EARTO held its annual conference in Gothenborg. Amongst the many excellent presentations, secretary general Chris Hull addressed in his talk “the Grand Challenges: The Essential Contribution of Research and Technology Organisations (RTOs)”. The following shows a slide (presented also at other occasions) which I believe reflects in an excellent way the development of the European Framework Programme. Here it is (copyright Christopher John Hull):
The image expresses IMHO very well how the framework programmes changed – at least during the last 10 years – from a perspective of individual (and co-funded) projects, towards increasingly policy driven initiatives with the idea of making a bigger impact (by larger initiatives such as IPs or by including the member states with Article 169 initiatives, by joint programming, etc.).
I would like to add a second slide that shows involvement of some key Austrian RTOs (AIT, JR, SRFG) in the Framework Programme (the slide has been presented by Klaus Pseiner, FFG):
The slide shows the European participation (in red/orange) and the national participation (in green) of core Austrian RTOs (research and technology organisations). As can be seen from the slide, there is an increase in national participation (for various reasons) and a decrease – at least the last years – in participation in European programmes. One obvious reason for that is the increasing competition through a grown EU; also the year 2003 was an all-time high; there were many national programmes been set-up in Austria; etc. But after all, I would assume, that participation in European framework programmes simply has increased in complexity (not to mention administrative issues). BTW: I should add that Salzburg Research‘s participation in FPs has over the years been slightly increasing in absolute figures (1,04 Mio. in 2004 to 1,39 Mio. in 2009); however, we had a bigger growth in our other activities, which means that the relative portion of the framework programmes at Salzburg Research has declined to about 20% in 2009, which is still an excellent value, I believe.
I would assume that if this trend continuous, FP8 will be even more complex: grand challenges will need to be addressed, a closer cooperation between science and industry is requested, national initiatives will be synched, etc. How this fits to the overall wish of fewer administration, reporting, etc. is an open issue.
Amongst the wishes I have for FP8: one should introduce a reputation system. I.e., those organisations (or units thereof) who have a long track record should be able to earn brownie points for that.
May 29th, 2010
Trust Researchers is a declaration to the attention of the European Council of Ministers and the Parliament.
The background (text taken from the declaration at http://www.trust-researchers.eu/index.php?file=background.htm):
“Currently research is funded according to many input oriented indicators.
At present the financial regulation – the relevant legal funding framework – treats research in similar way as procurement processes for any goods.
This condition is unsatisfying for researchers, research organisations and the European Community as a whole. It hinders the development of ground-breaking results through ineffective research funding.
The funding of European research should be based on trust. Today European researchers face many red tape and cumbersome financial regulations. We are not against rules. Rules are important and accountability is essential. However, research has to be funded in recognition of the nature of research, thus, the financial regulation and associated rules have to be adapted to primarily output oriented objectives and to conditions creating a transparent justification of costs.
What we need is a change in philosophy! ”
Interestingly, Austria currently leads with respect to the number of signees: see the excerpt form the official web site (http://www.trust-researchers.eu/index.php?file=background.htm) as of today (March 2nd, 2010) on the left. The right figure displays the list of countries in descending order:
At present, 3767 people have signed (March 2nd, 2010).
March 2nd, 2010
I happened to participate in a discussion organised by FFG (Andrea Höglinger and Sabine Herlitschka) on the evaluation of the European Framework Programmes. The (excellent) presentation was given by Peter Fisch (head of unit A3 Evaluation and monitoring of programmes in directorate Inter-institutional and legal matters – Framework programme). The powerpoints are available here (only the first slide is in German).
Interestingly, previous framework programmes (i.e., before FP7) were characterised by “ad hoc” evaluations, i.e., did not really have a systematic monitoring. Then, some impressive figures about the size were presented:
- 25.000 proposals (!) have been received for the years 2007 and 2008 with 160.000 applicants
- 5.500 proposals where retained, 35.000 participants
- SME participation is down to 15.5% (side issue here: in FP7 SME participation is measured after the financial viability check. As a consequence SME participation rate went down one third compared to previous evaluations where SME participation has been measured on the basis of the data provided by participants themselves when submitting the proposal).
FP7 is a mass business!
Some key findings were presented concerning the ex-post evaluation of FP6 (report of Feb. 2009 available). The core message: the achievements overall had a positive balance (i.e., network building was good, project results were good, etc.), the design of FP6 was “mixed” and finally, in the implementation there was “room for improvement”. Recommendations (amongst others): more bottom-up funding, administrative overhaul, etc.
For FP8 this means that there could be new lines of action (Grand challenges = top down, and Great Ideas = bottom up), a significantly higher budget as well as European excellence through global collaboration and competition.
The following figure (taken from the presentation) shows that the IST programme is the only part with a significant role for industry (the blue bubbles):
The following slide shows the central actors: it’s mostly universities, industry is only at the bottom of the list (Telefonica and France Telecom, both big players):
There is many more other interesting figures and data in the presentation!
Finally, the interim evaluation of FP7 will be available by Oct. 2010.
To me, FP6 (at least) was not for industry but mainly for universities and RTOs. In general, networks effects, publications, etc. seem to be well achieved. So let’s hope (and contribute) for a less-administrative and more industry-oriented FP8 (perhaps also with closer links between research programme and innovation-related activities)!
January 18th, 2010
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