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NEW METHODS of WORK in IST:
Workshop Report

Written by Dr Denis Potter, Rapporteur

Explanatory note: The workshop was held at the Royal Crown Hotel, Brussels 5th May 1999. The agenda is online at http://www.eto.org.uk/ist-nmw/ag990505.htm. A list of the projects associated with the New Methods of Work themes is also available - http://www.eto.org.uk/ist-nmw/projects.htm.

Executive Summary

DGXIII.C1 is to increase individual and team effectiveness, the quality of working life and the range of work/employment opportunities in the new Information Society by utilising support measures to cross-fertilise approaches and best practices between projects and to facilitate wider dissemination of their results. This will be achieved through a combination of dissemination and awareness actions, concerted actions including project clusters, and take-up measures.

Experience from predecessor programmes shows that concertation and project clustering do benefit individual projects and the overall programme objectives as a whole. Generally, collaboration between projects needs to be initiated from the bottom up rather than imposed top down. However, there needs to be a top-down vision and framework with appropriate operational guidelines. Not least, resources need to be made available for such activities, both within the projects and at the programme management level.

Concertation actions will include Annual Cluster Review Days open to anyone, especially SMEs not involved in specific projects.

Clustering of projects and take-up support nodes will be encouraged by project officers and perhaps by co-ordinators acting on their behalf, both to provide cross-fertilisation between projects and to achieve critical mass. They will also serve as the basis for the wider dissemination of results with particular focus on SMEs that are not direct participants in projects. Separate contracts will be awarded for these clusters and take-up support nodes, under the open call procedure, for the incremental effort and costs that add value to the individual projects and increase the achievement of the wider programme objectives.

Clusters may be formed around common applications, common sectors, disciplines, technologies or standards or to provide cross-programme fertilisation to meet the broader social and economic objectives of the European Union. A typical cluster would involve between four and twelve projects. The membership of clusters should be flexible and dynamic, participants joining and leaving when their objectives have been achieved, each cluster thus outliving its constituent projects. Clusters will utilise state-of-the-art Information and Communications Technologies to more effectively achieve their objectives.

There is scope to create clusters immediately around groups of remaining Fourth Framework Programme projects, probably taking in future IST programme clusters in due course. Creation of clusters around the first IST projects and of take-up nodes will be called most likely in January 2000.

CONTENTS

1. Introduction
2. Objectives
3. Experiences from FP4 Programmes
4. IST Programme
4.1 Support Measures
4.2 Dissemination and Awareness
4.3 Clustering
4.4 Organisation
4.5 Management
4.6 Modalities
4.7 Topic Priorities
5. Implementation

1. Introduction

Within the fundamental transformation from an industrial society to the information society, the new technologies are accelerating the globalisation of economies by providing SMEs with new ways to access the global marketplace. It is the aim of DGXIII.C1, New methods of work, to increase individual and team effectiveness, the quality of working life and the range of work/employment opportunities in this new, rapidly changing environment. This involves the transition from traditional ways of doing business to new opportunities with greater flexibility in work, greater reward in job creation for less investment, new jobs that are economic only with the new information and communications technologies and others that were previously infeasible. These technologies will in themselves change during the next few years, with rapidly increasing mobile access to information and multimedia services, the final convergence between telecommunications, computer networking and digital video/TV and changing human interfaces with these facilities, in which voice and other sensory mechanisms will take their place alongside the familiar visual display unit and keyboard.

We now need to make the transition from the objectives of the EC Fourth Framework Programme (in ACTS, ESPRIT and Telematics) to new challenging human-centric objectives in the FP5 IST programme. Existing participants are the foundation for new ways of working in this new programme, but lessons need to be drawn from what has already been achieved, new synergies discovered and consensus reached on jointly achieving these new objectives.

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2. Objectives

The objectives of DGXIII.C1, in taking the individual's perspective in this new environment, are to increase individual and team effectiveness, the quality of working life and the range of work/employment opportunities for all social groups in all regions through development of user-friendly Information Society technologies and new methods to organise work, and to promote best practice in their use. The unit also supports consumer and citizen rights in work and electronic commerce.

One of the programme's specific operational objectives is to maximise the benefit from individual projects by utilising support measures to cross-fertilise approaches and best practices between the projects and to facilitate wider dissemination of their results. This will be achieved through a combination of dissemination and awareness actions, concerted actions, including project clusters, and take-up measures.

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3. Experiences from FP4 Programmes

At the workshop held on 5 May 1999 presentations were given on seven projects within the FP4 programmes - ACTS, ESPRIT and Telematics - with participants spread across those and also the INCO programme. The objective was to develop a wider appreciation of the scope of projects within those programmes, to identify potential synergies between projects and to review common issues relating to the concertation and clustering mechanisms for maximising overall benefit across the European Union. These would lead to an outline plan for concertation and clustering activities within the New Methods of Work Action Lines within Key Action II of the IST programme.

The presentations illustrated the wide coverage of these programmes, including education, training, design, manufacturing, and involving suppliers and users, networks of SMEs working collaboratively and in virtual organisations. These resulted in shorter time to market, increased product quality, improved productivity and ergonomics and greater exploitation of innovation, many being employed in demonstrators. Some were achieved through the use of telepresence and videoconferencing, electronic commerce technologies and practices, and innovative use of websites. Almost all involved ICT toolkits, many of which demonstrated a general convergence in improving personal productivity and industrial environments, and new user interface technologies, including speech and natural language applications that had not previously been feasible. These tools and the evolution of related standards have greatly facilitated the cross-fertilisation between different applications, sectors, disciplines and programmes.

Although drawn widely from the three predecessor programmes, it was clear from these presentations alone that there exist opportunities for beneficial interchange of knowledge between a number of the projects. When the full list of projects within these programmes is examined, the scope becomes considerably greater and, without doubt, the workshop will have achieved its concertation objectives.

Considering the benefits to be gained from greater degrees of concertation and project clustering, it was generally agreed that provision of opportunities for information exchange between projects does benefit individual projects and the overall programme objectives as a whole. However, the point was made that not every project is suitable for gaining benefit from much more than simple dissemination of its results and that some would be harmed by the imposition of formalised arrangements. Generally, collaboration between projects needs to be initiated from the bottom up rather than imposed top down and should avoid taking little more than a superficial approach. However, there is scope for definition of a top-down vision and framework with appropriate operational guidelines. Not least, resources need to be made available for such activities, both within the projects and at the programme management level.

While initiatives can generally be considered to be the responsibility of project participants, there is a role for project officers, and perhaps for coordinators acting on their behalf, to encourage the setting up of clusters of projects with suitable common applications, technologies or common cross-programme themes. These clusters will provide environments for information exchange which are more effective than concertation meetings alone, although these will generally provide the initial opportunities for seeking the wider benefits. Clusters also provide better mechanisms for wider dissemination of programme results. Finally, clusters should be considered to be living organisms which projects can join and leave at the appropriate time.

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4. IST Programme

4.1 Support Measures

The IST programme includes provision for a number of types of support measures. These range from dissemination and awareness actions under the Accompanying Measures of Action Line VIII.3.1, to project clusters under Concerted Actions and Thematic Networks of Action Line VIII.2.1 and take-up support nodes under Take-Up Measures of Action Line VIII.1.1.

The dissemination and awareness actions will enhance awareness of RTD activities and enhance the exploitation of their results, with the provision of wider access to existing trials and demonstrations.

The project clusters seek to ensure a close co-ordination and complementarity of work performed in the different projects in order to maximise their joint impact, especially concerning standardisation, best practice and the exploitation of results.

The take-up support nodes are designed to co-ordinate and implement a group of take-up activities in order to exchange experiences, exploit synergies and expand the efforts of the various players so as to reach a critical mass. A major focus is on pro-active support of take-up, broad dissemination of results, awareness creation and stimulation of technology transfer on a thematic, regional, or industrial / service sector level.

These differing support measures will be deployed in a co-ordinated and complementary manner to maximise the benefit to project participants and to the programme as a whole.

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4.2 Dissemination and Awareness

In addition to the requirements placed upon every project within the IST programme to make its results available for wider dissemination, additional concertation actions will be an essential feature of the programme. Following the pattern developed under FP4, Annual Cluster Review Days (ACRD) will be held, with sessions open to anyone, especially SMEs not involved in specific projects, and with some discussions restricted to project participants only. It is these days that will provide the major opportunity for SMEs that are not directly involved in projects to learn about results that could be exploited by them and to derive the wider benefit that the programme offers.

Participation in these activities needs to be included in project workplans. Although this will not be a mandatory requirement on all project participants, it is a general expectation that each project will make a contribution and, equally, will be able to derive benefit from them.

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4.3 Clustering

As an adjunct to concertation, and providing opportunity for greater synergistic results, clustering of projects will be encouraged, both to provide cross-fertilisation between projects and to achieve critical mass. They will also serve as the basis for the wider dissemination of results with particular focus on SMEs that are not direct participants in projects.

Although subject to separate tendering arrangements, take-up support nodes offer similar opportunities to project clusters and the following descriptions apply equally to this type of support measure.

While project workplans need to include provision for concertation effort, they only need to be structured in a way that could exploit the potential for project clustering. Where clustering is appropriate, consideration needs to be given to the extra effort required and to the resultant benefits to be gained. Separate contracts will be awarded for these clusters and take-up support nodes, under the open call procedure, for the incremental effort and costs that add value to the individual projects and increase the achievement of the wider programme objectives.

Project officers will encourage participants to form such clusters and may appoint coordinators with the skills and resources to achieve their added value.

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4.4 Organisation

Clusters may be formed around common applications, common sectors, disciplines, technologies or standards or to provide cross-programme fertilisation to meet the broader social and economic objectives of the European Union, eg linking the consumer and business communities represented by Key Actions I and II respectively. Wider cross-programme cooperation could link the IST programme with the EC thematic programme on Competitive and Sustainable Growth.

A typical cluster will involve between four and twelve projects, each represented by between one and three partners. The coordinating partner may be drawn from one of these participating organisations, or may be appointed from outside the membership for the specific purpose of setting up and running the cluster.

Creation of clusters will, generally, follow the award of individual project contracts in the case of new clusters. The membership of existing clusters should be reviewed regularly, participants leaving when their objectives have been achieved, new members being invited to join when their objectives are compatible with those of the cluster. It is in this creation or refreshment process that the project officers can play a major role in encouraging individuals to see the wider opportunities and benefits that clustering offers.

Clusters have the opportunity to utilise state-of-the-art Information and Communications Technologies to more effectively achieve their objectives, using websites, discussion forums, email exploders, etc, to conduct virtual meetings complementary to the established ACRD concertation meetings and, thus, exchange information and develop new and innovative applications with less resource. They will also be able to provide a much wider dissemination, including training, to meet the broader IST programme objectives.

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4.5 Management

Management of a cluster may be kept separate from the management of the individual projects that form its membership, even in cases where the cluster's activities are funded entirely by those members without additional EC funding. Where EC funding is involved, eg to achieve increased value for the IST programme as a whole or to provide significantly increased dissemination, the additional funds would be provided principally for cluster management and dissemination tasks.

Thus, each cluster's programme and management would remain separate from the constituent projects. In this way, the life of the cluster would remain independent from any individual project and would permit the joining and leaving of project participants during its life that is to be a key feature of their operation.

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4.6 Modalities

The principal raison d'etre of a cluster is that its project members consider that it adds value to their projects and to their wider interests. Additional EC sponsorship will recognise the further value added by the cluster to European Union objectives.

Thus, EC funding support will be based upon the principle of additionality in achieving these objectives. Funding will be provided for those tasks that would not otherwise happen due to unavailability of resources. Further definition has yet to be resolved on guidelines for these tasks and for the appropriate funding percentages that will be applied.

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4.7 Topic Priorities

There is no limitation to the topics that may be considered for clustering. Benefits are seen for clustering about common applications, common technologies, cross-sector, cross-discipline and cross-programme themes. The essential requirement is that each participant considers benefit to be gained from participation.

The wider programme dissemination aims, not just between project participants but also to SMEs that are not direct project participants, are a high priority to DGXIII.C1. These aims will continue to be given high profile during the open calls of the IST programme.

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5. Implementation

There is scope within the open call of 19 March 1999 (ending on 15 September 1999) for the formation of clusters, initiated bottom up, around groups of remaining FP4 projects under the Concerted Actions and Thematic Networks Action VIII.2.1. Each of these must offer benefits that the participants can identify themselves, but their formation will be encouraged and facilitated by project officers, or coordinators acting on their behalf. Particularly beneficial will be clusters that cross the boundaries of the predecessor programmes. Bearing in mind the dynamic nature foreseen for clusters, the membership of these clusters should be flexible and open in due course to new projects started under Action Line II.1.2 in the 19 March 1999 call (closing on 15 June 1999) and under other Action Lines and calls.

The major creation of clusters of projects within the IST programme will most likely be invited under the open call planned to start on 15 September 1999. This would initiate clusters around projects selected from the 19 March 1999 call that closes on 15 June 1999. These clusters would form the main part of the concertation and clustering actions within new methods of work part of the IST programme, being joined by the clusters formed around the remaining FP4 projects, or indeed deriving synergy from clusters involving both FP4 and IST projects.

In parallel with these clusters, Take-up Support Nodes will most likely be selected from the call of January 2000.

Preference would be shown to those cluster and take-up support node proposals that promise a continuing life after completion of the initial set of projects and which would take a flexible and dynamic approach to inclusion of new projects initiated under later programme calls. Where appropriate, appointment of cluster coordinators from outside the project membership would be considered favourably.

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For further information about the New Methods of Work projects joint activities please connect with John Nolan, john.nolan@dg13.cec.be

List of projects from ACTS, Esprit and Telematics
New Methods of Work discussion and announcements facility
Return to New Methods of Work index page


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Page last updated: 21st May 1999