| All projet outputs are targeted at policy-makers and bodies involved in supporting and implementing public policies in the field of Information Society and Regional Development.
Target is therefore specialist and will be reached by presentations to seminars and conferences, dissemination via web of project outputs, distribution of material at public events.
In this section you will find details about project conferences and dissemination materials.
The first International Conference took place in Bruxelles on the 17th of March, 2005.
You can find presentations in the First Conference results page.
The second International Conference took place on 22nd - 23rd June, 2006.
You can find presentations in the Second Conference results page.
A Final International Conference took place in Poznan on the 31st of March, 2006.
You can find presentations in the Final Conference results page.
Download Understand Project official deliverables:
The first project Conference will take place on March the 17th, at the Committee of the Regions of the European Union premises, in Brussels, 101 rue Belliard.
The conference, aimed at disseminate UNDERSTAND first results, will be an occasion to discuss the benchmarking issues and the related policy implications in order to fully exploit the operations results and widen the number of Regions taking up the UNDERSTAND methodology.
The event is targeted to regions; development agencies; research centres working on ICT, PAs and regional development; Local PAs; national and European statistical offices; EC officers working on INFOSOC and regional development; region networks and associations.
Working languages: English, Spanish, Italian
The event is hosted and sponsored by the Committee of the Regions.
IMPORTANT: Because of the CoR security policy, registration is mandatory to access the conference building.
Registrations are closed. If you are registered, PLEASE, PRINT THE CONFIRMATION E-MAIL AND HAND IT TO THE REGISTRATION DESK.
CONFERENCE DETAILS:
e-Europe: benchmarking and policy development
Laura Pontiggia - European Commission - DG INFSO
The UNDERSTAND operations: a joint effort to
benchmark the Information Society in the Regions
David Osimo – Emilia-Romagna Regional Government
Presentation of the benchmarking results in
UNDERSTAND partner Regions
Broadband infrastructure - David Osimo – Emilia-
Romagna Regional Government
E–government - Elena Ruiz – Valencian Office for the
Information Society
E-business - Olaf Juptner – Agentur Hessen
ICT usage by citizens - Paul Beynon Davies - University
of Wales
The First Project Conference took place on March the 17th in Brussels and was hosted and sponsored by the Committee of Regions.
The event goal was not only to present the project methodology and approach and the first UNDERSTAND results, but also to rise awareness on regional Information Society benchmarking relevance and to invite non-partner regions to test, evaluate and adopt the methodology.
Both DG REGIO and DG INFOSOC contributed to the event with a presentation. Mrs. Fitzegerald from DG REGIO pointed out how welcomed was the UNDERSTAND initiative, considering the shared regional benchmarking methodology a tool to assess the running initiatives and to target the spending. Mrs. Laura Pontiggia, from DG INFOSOC, gave very interesting anticipation on the eEurope benchmarking report that will be soon published: her intervention pointed out the inner consistency by eEurope and UNDERSTAND rationale and the need for regional data that EEROPE, even in the EU25 version, doesn’t provide.
During the Conference, the UNDERSTAND project partners have presented the methodology handbook and the first survey results on four domains (broadband infrastructure, e-government, e-business and ICT usage by citizens) in the partner regions, while in the afternoon session, regional ICT policy managers have discussed the data from the point of view of their regions’ policy-making and good practices.
Conference participants were representatives of regions, development agencies, research centres, European networks working on ICT and regional development and some very interesting remarks on the methodology come from them during the conference debate.
The overall approach of the project is meant to exploit and harmonise the indicators and methodology that are most widely adopted at the international level instead of developing new ones. For this reason the methodology takes into account previous regional Information Society benchmarking experiences, most of whom gave relevant results (such as BISER, ebusiness-watch, SIBIS, BISER, BEEP, ESPON, REGIONAL-IST, SOURIR).
Another point of the base rational was to pursue the highest consistency with EUROSTAT and eEurope.
Finally, one of the project main goals is to rise the attention (and contribute to the awareness) on the relevance of regional Information Society benchmarking and to involve as many regions as possible in the project, in order to have a really shared, largely adopted framework where regions can effectively compare with each other, evaluate local performances, policy and actions and eventually redirect them. The UNDERSTAND project already has a good geographical coverage of European regional models of Information Society: partners are Emilia-Romagna (I, project leader) Aquitaine (FR), Baleares (E), Hessen (D), Piedmont (I), Valencia (E), Vasternorrland (SV), Wales (UK), Wielkopolska (PL), Yorkshireand the Humber (UK), while ERIS@ association is supporting the initiative.
Early reactions to the project are favourable: regional and national statistical bodies in Spain, Italy, Poland, Denmark and Norway have already shown interest in the methodology and in exchanging the data. The project aims at involving as many regions as possible in using the methodology and comparing the data.
Presentations are available for download.
The second project Conference “LEARNING FROM BENCHMARKING TO MAKE I2010! A REALITY IN THE REGIONS: DATA ANALYSIS , IMPACTS ON ICT POLICIES, EMERGING NEEDS”, will be hosted by the Committee of the Regions of the European Union in Brussels on the 30th March 2006.
The conference will be aimed at the presentation of the UNDERSTAND results based on the regional benchmarking of the information society through common methodology and comparable indicators and of their impacts on policy making. The event will also offer a broad picture on the regional development of the Information society through the presentations of other European best practices as BENTLI, SOURIR, BIRRA. Thus we will demonstrate more in general how regions contribute to the delivery of the I2010! objectives. The relevance and the potentiality of the benchmarking exercise will be the heritage that the Understand regions will share with the IANIS+ framework.
The event will be structured in two main sessions: the former providing a picture of the status/progress in the Information society implementation as it comes out from the UNDERSTAND results and from the ones of BENTLI, SOURIR and BIRRA. The latter will be dedicated at presenting how benchmarking improves policy making in the regions and help tackle i2010! objectives ; we will show what regions learnt from data, how they actually implemented the benchmarking results in their policies and what is still missing to improve policy support. This session foresees the full involvement of policy maker and managers from the participating regions.
The conference is targeted on Regions; Development Agency; Research centres working on ICT, P ublic Administrations, regional development, statistics; Local administration; national and European statistical offices, EC officers working on INFSO and Regional Development, Regional networks.
Working languages: English, Spanish, Italian, Polish
The event is hosted and sponsored by the Committee of the Regions.
IMPORTANT: Because of the CoR security policy, registration is mandatory to access the conference building.
PLEASE REGISTER WITHIN 24TH MARCH 2006.
CONFERENCE DETAILS:
The role of the Regions in Information Society
Benchmarking i2010 - Luca Protti - European Commission - DG Information Society
The UNDERSTAND operation: a joint effort to benchmark the Information Society in the Regions - Chiara Mancini – Regional Government of Emilia-Romagna
Presentation of the benchmarking results in partner regions
Broadband infrastructure - Chiara Mancini – Regional Government of Emilia-Romagna
E-government – Victor Prieto – Valencian Office for the Information Society
E-business - Olaf Juptner – HA Hessen Agentur
ICT usage by citizens – Mike Williams - University of Wales
Best practice from other European experiences
Bentli - Teresa Muñoz - Fundecyt
Sourir - Helene Raimond - Walloon Telecommunications Agency
Birra - Donnie Morrison - Western Isles Enterprise
Initial analysis from the data
The Regions and i2010 - Using Benchmarking to accelerate Information Society progress
Roundtable 1: Digital convergence - Guido Acchioni, DG Information Society - European Commission
The information society in the Regions and the cohesion policy - Olivier Baudelet, European Commission - DG REGIO
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The RESULT REPORT is available for download.
The Second Project Conference took place on March 30th in Brussels and was hosted and sponsored by the Committee of Regions.
The event goal was not only to disseminate the second year project results, but also to underline their impacts on policy making and on how regions can contribute to the achievement of the i2010 agenda.
The event was opened by Mrs Marie-Claire Neill Cowper – head of Unit of EDUC that stressed the role of regions in the achievement of i2010 objectives and indicated in the benchmarking an important tool to measure its progress.
Luca Protti from the European Commission presented the indicators that will be monitored in benchmarking i2010.
The presentations from the Understand partners provided updated information on about 200 indicators collected at the regional level related to 4 domains: e –government, e-business, citizens and broadband. The presentations showed the updates in comparison to the surveys carried out in 2004 as regard new issues investigated in 2005, indicators refinements and trend data.
In the morning session three European best practices on benchmarking presented their methodology and the expected results: Bentli as regard methodology guidelines for digital literacy benchmarking, Birra as regard the e-ladder evaluation model that will be tested in remote areas and Sourir the organisational approach adopted by the French regions.
Finally to go more in depth with benchlearning, the opportunities for further analysis on Understand data have been presented so that to model the relations between the different group of indicators.
In the afternoon session, regional ICT policy managers have discussed about the contribution of regions in delivering the i2010 agenda, by presenting those activities in which policy intervention has been successful and those areas in which intervention is now required.
The session was closed by Gareth Hughes, that underlined that most of the expenditure on ICT is made by regions and regional action needs regional data. Measurement at the regional level proves to be a fundamental supporting tool for decision making.
Feed-back from experts in the field about data have been very positive and the Commission showed some true interest in the project and in particular in the possibility to widen the benchmarking to new regions.
Presentations are available for download
The final project Conference “DEVELOPING THE INFORMATION SOCIETY IN THE REGIONS: BENCHMARKING INDICATORS, LEADING PROJECTS AND POLICY SUPPORT”, will take place in Wielkopolska - Poland, on the 22-23rd of June, at the Poznan International Fair premises.
The objective of the final project conference will be focused on:
1. The results of two year research activities in the four thematic fields (Social Infrastructure, e-Government, Broadband, e-business showing the importance of measurement tools in the process of managing the Information Society development.
2. The presentation of leading ICT projects implemented at the regional level to illustrate what is behind benchmarking indicators and how concretely the Information society is implemented in the participating regions.
3. The description of the potentiality of benchmarking indicators in supporting policy making by their elaboration through complex research techniques (factor analysis) and their current usage in the regions.
The conference benefits from the honourable patronage of Mrs Danuta Hübner – EU Commissioner for Regional Policyon Information Society, to provide new ideas and suggestions.
The event is targeted to National Authorities, Regions (in particular from New Member States); Development Agencies; Research Institutions, Public administration; Statistical Offices (National and Regional), EC officers (DG Regio and Information Society).
Working languages: To be defined
IMPORTANT: Because of security policy, registration is mandatory to access the conference building.
PLEASE REGISTER TO THE CONFERENCE [REJESTRACJA] - Deadline 14th June.
CONFERENCE DETAILS:
Conference partners:
1. Cities on Internet Association
2. Institute of Logistics and Warehousing
3. Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Centre
4. Wielkopolska Centre for Education and Self-Government Studies
5. Polish Telecommunication S.A.
6. Poznan Science and Technology Park
Media patronages:
1. TV BIZNES
2. COMPUTERWOLD
3. WSPÓLNOTA
4. e-Fakty
DAY 1, 22 JUNE 2006
Opening lecture: The information Society in the Regional Policy - Benchmarking and evaluation in the New Programming Period 2007-2013
Mr Reiner Kneifel-Haverkamp, European Commission, DG Regio
The Understand project: measuring the development of the Information Society in the regions - Understand overview
Chiara Mancini, Regional Government of Emilia-Romagna
Presentation of the benchmarking results in partner regions:
* Broadband infrastructure
Chiara Mancini, Regional Government of Emilia-Romagna
* E–government
Victor Prieto, Valencian Office for the Information Society
* E-business
Olaf Juptner, HA Hessen Agentur
* ICT usage by citizens
Chloe Chadderton, University of Wales
Building on benchmarking: how data can be used to support policy making
Indicators in the process of regional strategy development
Sandra Lotti, Regional Government of Emilia-Romagna
Experiences from New Member Regions
Wojciech Sadowicz, Cities on the Internet Association - POLISH VERSION
From policy inputs to sectoral changes: the TRANSFORM project
Karsten Gareis, Empirica
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DAY 2, 23 JUNE 2006
What lies behind benchmarking indicators: best practices to develop the Information Society in the Understand regions. (parallel sessions )
Social infrastructure: CHAIR:
Karsten Gareis - Empirica
* Regional Digital Libraries 1 -
Regional Digital Libraries 2
Marcin Werla, Project Leader, Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center
* A rural lifestyle with good ICT access
Charlie Wallin, Project Manager Association of local authorities in the county of Vasternorrland
* Using ICT for social inclusion: examples from Wales
Miranda Morton, Research Manager, Welsh Assembly Government
E-government: CHAIR:
Wojciech Pelc - Poznań City
* e-Formación and Canal GV Project, bringing near the e-administration to citizens
José Vicente Monfort, Project Manager, Generalitat Valenciana
*The e-gov services by the Regional Local Authorities Unified Network (RUPAR-2)
Chiara Valerio, Project Manager, Technopolis
*Applications and services for local government
Marek Bigosiński, Deputy Director, Wielkopolska Center of Education and Local Government Studies - POLISH VERSION
*IRIDE: user identification as a success factor for e-government services
Silvana Ponsero, Project Manager, CSI Piemonte
Broadband: CHAIR:
Cristoforo Morandini, Between Spa
* Broadband metropolitan and national network – services for education
Piotr Grzybowski, Deployment Manager, Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center - POLISH VERSION
* Development of broadband infrastructure for provision of e-gov services
Sławomir Partyka, Director, Polish Telecommunication S.A. - POLISH VERSION
* Lepida the Broadband Network of Emilia Romagna Region
Marco Calzolari, Head of the regional ICT infrastructure management and development department, Region Emilia-Romagna
E-business: CHAIR:
Freek Posthumus NORMAPME/UEAPME
*TRADE POINT POZNAŃ – platform for matching offers
Marcin Kraska, Deputy Head of e-Commerce Center, Institute of Logistics and Warehousing
* Booking engines for direct selling and electronic distribution in the tourism sector
Miguel Angel Chacón, Project Manager, IBIT Foundation
*The program hessen-it and activities resulting from the benchmarking data
Dieter Kreuziger, CEO, HA Hessen Agentur GmbH
* E-business training for SMEs and in social infrastructure
Charlie Wallin, Project Manager Association of local authorities in the county of Vasternorrland
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