The Fourth Framework programme supports European RTD with 13,200 million ECU for a four year period. It brings together universities, research centres and private enterprises, paying particular attention to projects which have a direct impact on competitiveness and the quality of life. Telework is featured in many of the 17 specific programmes of research. Examples include a task to explore possible substitution of commuting in the Transport Research Programme, and a task to explore better use of energy by working at home in the Non-nuclear energy research (THERMIE).
However, the main contributions to furthering the take-up of more flexible ways of working are being made by the three specific programmes related to Information and Communication Technologies: ACTS, ESPRIT, and the Telematics Applications Programme.
An important aim of the 4th Framework RTD programme Advanced Communications Technologies and Services is not only to develop new technology, but also to validate its usefulness to citizens and organisations by using the new technologies in trials with real end users, and to distil out of the work done a number of "Guidelines" in areas of broad policy interest, of which telework is one. This commitment to Guidelines is based on the Maastricht Treaty (Art.129 c). Where these require or could benefit from wider political endorsement, the Commission has the unique responsibility to transmit them to the European Council of Ministers and the European Parliament for consideration as formal recommendations.
In most areas of development related to advanced communications, no groups - even Governments - are in a position to impose guidelines solely on the basis of expert opinion. A wide consensus is a pre-requisite for political endorsement. This is particularly true in the case of telework. An important role for ACTS is therefore to coordinate and consolidate the consensus that can be reached in the different constituencies accessed by ACTS projects.
In the Programme, many projects have relationships with one another, for example one develops components for another's prototype, which may in turn be validated by a third project. At the most basic level, the deliverable may be the communication of key findings or other information. However, interaction between projects extends much further than this. A structure for an integrated set of projects has been identified in order to optimise meaningful inter-relationships and information exchange between the actors. One of these "chains of projects" is the ACTS Telework Concertation Chain (GAT).
Special attention is needed for trans-border telework. However, the key objective in developing guidelines is to achieve a wide consensus on how to deal with telework. Again, the most important success factor in this is the breadth of consensus. The best set of guidelines from a viewpoint of content is that one that has the commitment and agreement of the major players.
The ACTS Telework Concertation Chain
The ACTS Telework Concertation Chain (GAT) is a forum for concertation, information exchange and cooperation between independently financed and managed projects. Its focus is the link between ACTS projects (and ACTS as a whole) and a positive and balanced European approach to telework technologies, services, methods and practices. Its specific interest is to ensure that investment in and relating to telework is encouraged by the early resolution of issues and uncertainties, based on consensus among the various constituencies. The projects within the ACTS Telework Concertation Chain are included in Annex 271.
The objectives of the ACTS GAT Chain are to enhance understanding of the link between existing and new technologies and economic and societal success in the context of telework and telecooperation, and to seek consensus around Guidelines that will improve the confidence of users and suppliers in their decision making about these applications. The Chain also ensures that Guidelines are ‘endorsed’ within ACTS and by its constituents of interests, including:
GAT has, at present, endorsed three Guidelines, and others are being developed:
In May 1998, the GAT Chain ran a seminar on The home as a market in an Information Society context, which drew attention to the extremely large potential market for home consumption of ICTs. At an average of 5 kECUs (thousands of ECUs), European consumers/homes represent an annual disposable income of some 750 BECUs (Billion ECUs). At present Home Internet Commerce in Europe is only about 1.7 BECUs, but even conservation estimates reckon that this will rise to at least 9 BECUs by the year 2001. This represents less than 2% of disposable income and a tiny fraction of European total trade. The critical aspect is its growth rate, making it essential that European enterprises make an early start on the learning curve, even if they believe there won’t be a significant impact in their particular market for some time, Industry must gear itself for this. At the same time, the potential for teleworkable jobs is at least 50% of all jobs, and this is further increasing the potential growth of the Home as a market75.
Esprit is the European Community’s IT R&D programme. One of the principal components of this programme is work on electronic commerce and teleworking. Esprit itself is divided into a number of ‘domains’. Because of their interdisciplinary nature, work related to electronic commerce and teleworking is carried out in several Esprit domains. The most important of these is Technologies for Business Processes (TBP), which is based on the acknowledgement that it is not possible simply to introduce, for example, workflow system technologies into businesses without also looking at their organisational structures, processes and goals. TBP’s overriding goal is to support innovation in the way European enterprises do business in order to compete effectively world-wide by focusing on three elements: human resources, business processes and technologies and methodologies. The first two are normally the drivers, and the last is the enabler, but sufficient attention must be paid to all three components.
In addition, the domains Integration in Manufacturing (IiM) and High Performance Computing and Networking (HPCN) also cover work in areas such as collaborative design and computer simulation which is highly relevant to electronic commerce and teleworking. Although such work may not be narrowly focused on electronic commerce and teleworking per se, nevertheless it is connected with ‘doing business electronically’ and thus falls within a broader definition of these terms. It follows from this that there is a natural connection between work in these areas and those grouped under electronic commerce and teleworking in the new Fifth Framework Programme Key Action 2 "New ways of working and electronic commerce". (See section 5.2 below).
Innovation in business implies a transformation away from the traditional, hierarchical company with processes focused only on internal activity, which excludes those working outside the company, is characterised by both external and internal walls between people, functions and tasks, and where communication takes place only across the top levels and vertically down within functional departments. Decisions and reactions to outside events thus need long lead times. A possible reorganised and transformed company open to innovation is where internal walls have disappeared and the structure has flattened, and lines to customers and suppliers are strengthened. Such a structure requires a good overview of processes being used, how they are being used and who is using them, all of which technology can provide. These processes can be both internal and external to the company, and include contacts, sales, support, distribution, payments, etc. Electronic commerce processes are an important aspect here.
Technologies are needed to effect these processes, including EDI, multi-media, encryption secure technology, etc. In addition, and coming between these technologies and the processes they serve, are applications like management information systems, workflow, cooperative work, human resources systems, document retrieval systems, etc. These applications are needed so that everyone in the restructured company can access and retrieve the information necessary to perform the processes they are involved in, wherever they may be, whether this be in a virtual company, a branch office or the main office. Similarly, methodologies are also important in reorganising a company, whether this involves incremental or radical change, in order to define where you are, where you want to be, and thus the path leading from the former to the latter. A methodology also allows experience to be systematically collected so that the company can learn through its change processes. These methodologies include business process re-engineering (BPR), total quality management (TQM), just-in-time (JIT), etc.
ESPRIT-TBP has put in place three types of actions:
Telework, as well as other new ways to work, is seen by ESPRIT as part of the total process of change, and good examples of telework involve much more than an examination simply of where the work is done. Telework requires flexibility within the company and can only succeed if it part of the total concept of the organisation. Apart from TBP, telework is also prominent in a 1997 ESPRIT call which focused on a series of themes cutting across the existing eight domains, one of which is concerned with mobility.
The major difference between the Telematics Applications Programme (TAP) and other European RTD is that it attempts to move closer to deployment with real prototype development that could become commercial applications. In this context, users play a central role in TAP projects.
The TAP covers nine vertical sectors, each concerned with specific areas of activity, like health, education, transport, etc. Interest in telework appears in a number of these but tends to be more explicitly addressed in the TURA sector (Telematics for Urban and Rural Areas), especially through its focus, amongst other things, on:
Other TAP sectors also provide some work of relevance to telework, such as "Education and Training" through its concern for knowledge-based activities, "Healthcare" with remote access to medical services and "Libraries" in terms of availability of remote information sources used by teleworkers. Among the results produced by these sectors, it is worth mentioning the study conducted by the MIRTI project from the "Telematics Engineering" sector on "Models of Industrial Relations in Telework" and the study on "Telework for People with Disabilities" from the AVISE project, a preparatory action from the "Disabled and Elderly" sector. (See Annex 2 for more information).
New projects were launched in 1997 addressing the topics of ‘decentralisation of activities’ and ‘support for constrained workers’. The wide range of telework related activities in TAP highlights the fact that telework is an evolving concept. Initially it was seen largely as people working at home whereas today the concept is much broader than this because:
Next section
Previous
section
Return
to Status Report contents page
Return to European Telework Online home page
This html version of the European Commission report is provided and maintained by Marco
Colonna, Telework Specialist in the European Telework Online website team.
Please address comments, suggestions and corrections for the status report to editors-tw98@eto.org.uk
This page address: http://www.eto.org.uk/twork/tw98/htmpages/tw98-4.3.htm
Page last updated: 12 October 1998