1. 12th October 2005 The UNDERSTAND project 1 Benchmarking regional information society: the project Understand Open Days Brussels, 12th October 2005 Sandra Lotti - Regione Emilia-Romagna

2. 12th October 2005 The UNDERSTAND project 2 Why a regional benchmarking? Studies of competitiveness and economic development have tended to focus on the nation as the unit of analysis, and on national attributes and policies as the drivers. As regional scientists and economic geographers have long understood, however, there are substantial differences in economic performance across regions in virtually every nation. This suggests that many of the essential determinants of economic performance are to be found at the regional level. M. Porter, 2003

3. 12th October 2005 The UNDERSTAND project 3 The rationale: if you cant measure it, you cant manage it Regions have a key role to ensure economic competitiveness and social/geographical cohesion, in particular for innovative fields such as broadband, e-government, ICT usage. Theres a huge investment on Information Society by regions, which need to evaluate the impact of their investment. Benchmarking enables comparison and mutual learning between governments, and its especially needed in innovative fields such as Information Society. BUT… Theres no comparable data on Information Society for EU regions (even for the future) Many regions have observatories but collected data are not comparable Many private sources provide data, often very different and disputed Regions need to manage this process, not to follow it passively Emilia-Romagna felt this need as soon as the regional ICT Plan (2002- 2005) was approved: it was a 150m investment with yearly updates to have the possibility to readdress priorities and initiatives: we needed a tool to inform us on the relation between policies and results, and on possible alternatives.

4. 12th October 2005 The UNDERSTAND project 4 Why a regional benchmarking? We started comparing Emilia-Romagna with the benchmarking data from e-Europe, that is to say with nations Regions get together with a bottom-up initiative to agree common indicators, collect data and involve many more regions in validating and using them. Following proposal from Emilia-Romagna Region through the European Regional Information Society Association (eris@) 10 regions from 7 EU countries get together in UNDERSTAND.

5. 12th October 2005 The UNDERSTAND project 5 Understand partnership: 10 regions from 7 EU countries Vasternorrland The partnership provides us with a good coverage of Europe, and also with enough diversity to make comparison an useful tool.

6. 12th October 2005 The UNDERSTAND project 6 Definition of indicators Surveys Results evaluation and 6/ 200412/ 20046/ 200512/ 20056/ 20062/ 2004 Revision of indicators Surveys Results evaluation First cycle Second cycle OTHER NON PARTNER REGIONS Use Provid e input Use Provide fdback The project life

7. 12th October 2005 The UNDERSTAND project 7 Methodological approach of Understand Pragmatic approach: not to define yet another methodology and ICT indicators, but use the most consolidated ones. Citizens: eEurope; SIBIS; BISER; OECD model questionnaire; Sourir/Sensitic 2; The Work Foundation – iSociety; other regional research. E-business: eEurope; eBusiness-watch; SIBIS; BISER; OECD model questionnaire; Regional-IST; other regional research. E-government: Nordic Model Questionnaire; eEurope- CGEY; NESIS; Regional-IST; KEeLan; Topoftheweb; IEG surveys (UK); IRIA (E); other regional research. Broadband infrastructure: Osservatorio Banda Larga (I); ORTEL (F); ESPON project 1.2.2.

8. 12th October 2005 The UNDERSTAND project 8 Methodological approach (2):definition of domains and indicators 1.Responding regions selected e-government, e-business and citizens as top domain, and proposed broadband infrastructure as additional domain 2.After reviewing all the ±400 indicators of existing projects, partners chose the most relevant indicators and used the existing methodology for it. An handbook has been produced with indicators and methodology for each domain, to make sure that results of surveys are fully comparable. After the first round of surveys indicators have been modified and a new version of the handbook has been produced: suggestions from new regions joining the project have been taken into account.

9. 12th October 2005 The UNDERSTAND project 9 Methodological approach The Handbook is available to all regions that engage themselves in using Understand methodology and make resulting data available on the project DB: we have therefore prepared a memorandum of collaboration to be signed

10. 12th October 2005 The UNDERSTAND project 10 Methodological approach (3):pursue complete transferability to all regions Indicators for all EU regions, not only for partners: use more STANDard indicators, little creativity, high interaction with other regions and experts all along the project. Not defining a common ex-ante theoretical framework, but let each region use its own for regional analysis. Start from the need of the users, i.e. regional policy makers. Involve more regions. Benchmarking benefits from network economies: the more regions use the indicators, the more value benchmarking delivers.

11. 12th October 2005 The UNDERSTAND project 11 WHAT WE DELIVER: Output 1.Methodology handbook : –Broadband: focus on coverage; technology competition; providers competition –E-government: not only online services: back-office, skills, usage, multi-channel delivery, e-democracy. –E-business: not overall economy, but three specific sectors. Regions very significantly in terms of economic sectors (more than countries), overall data are not meaningful. We therefore selected: tourism, ICT and mechanical 1.Citizens: access, usage, skills. Focus on usage of public and private services (local- global). 2.Regional data collection from 9 EU regions (2 domains for regions); 3.Regional benchmarking database where to upload regional data Non-partner regions can benefit from a ready-made methodology and the on-line database to upload data and compare against other EU regions.

12. 12th October 2005 The UNDERSTAND project 12 The threats and opportunities of benchmarking Measuring is necessary, not to make rankings of winners and losers, but to assess ICT adoption over time. Recent research (EIU 2004) states that ICT uptake needs to reach a threshold before it can impact on productivity and that there is a time-lag between investment and impact. This makes measurement across time and across regions even more urgent. Benchmarking provides comparable statistical data. It is not evaluation, but provides a basis for evaluation. The same indicator has different meaning in different regions (result, impact, context). –Data are a basic fact on which to found analysis of the policies, strength and weaknesses and possibly readdress them. Two-tier benchmarking: 1) comparable basic data between regions to assess readiness and usage and 2) in depth research within a region to assess usage and impact. UNDERSTAND directly produces the first tier. Each region, individually, can produce the second tier for its own needs.

13. 12th October 2005 The UNDERSTAND project 13 First tier: Broadband infrastructure, difficult to collect, but necessary data

14. 12th October 2005 The UNDERSTAND project 14 First tier: E-government,strategies and results Municipalities with an ICT strategy 100% 92% 5% 17% 21% 6% 21% 0%20%40%60%80%100% Wales Yorkshire and the Humber Wielkopolska Hessen Comunidad Valenciana Piemonte Emilia-Romagna Municipalities with broad band connection 11% 23% 36% 6% 34% 64% 20% 59% 75% 52% 0%20%40%60%80%100% Wielkopolska Hessen Comunidad Valenciana Piemonte Emilia-Romagna Comuni con banda larga superiore ai 2MbpsComuni con banda larga Electronic documents handling 92% 14% 21% 27% 9% 26% 75% 11% 13% 16% 0% 12% 88% 0%20%40%60%80%100% Wales Yorkshire and the Humber Wielkopolska Hessen Comunidad Valenciana Piemonte Emilia-Romagna Electronic doc.handling system Muncipalites allowing on line payment via web 50% 83% 1% 6% 3% 17% 0% 20%40%60%80%100% Wales Yorkshire and the Humber Wielkopolska Hessen Comunidad Valenciana Piemonte Emilia-Romagna Electorinic case admin.

15. 12th October 2005 The UNDERSTAND project 15 First tier: Measuring e-business with a sectorial approach

16. 12th October 2005 The UNDERSTAND project 16 First tier: Citizens usage of ICT Homes with broad band on total connected homes 14% 8% 10% 18% 22% 40% 35% 41% 57% 45% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% Emilia-RomagnaWalesYorkshire and the Humber Islas BalearesVasternorrland Case a banda larga maggiore di 2MbpsCase a banda larga Internet users that visited PA web sites to find i nfo Or download forms 39% 20% 39% 38% 36% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% 55% 60% Emilia-RomagnaWalesYorkshire and the Humber Islas BalearesVasternorrland Internet users that orderd products on line 25% 54% 62% 10% 49% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% Emilia-RomagnaWalesYorkshire and the Humber Islas BalearesVasternorrland 3% 9% 11% 1% 24% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% Emilia-RomagnaWalesYorkshire and the Humber Islas BalearesVasternorrland e-government transactional users

17. 12th October 2005 The UNDERSTAND project 17 Second tier: our regional analysis When comparing the effort spent by our PA in providing the possibility to have complete transaction on line Munic. with online payment facilities 50% 83% 1% 6% 3% 17% 0% 20%40%60%80%100% Wales Yorkshire and the Humber Wielkopolska Hessen Comunidad Valenciana Piemonte Emilia-Romagna with the use from citizens we realised that still e-brochure is more popular then e-government: infact E-government information users 39% 20% 39% 38% 36% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% 55% 60% Emilia-RomagnaWalesYorkshire and the Humber Islas BalearesVasternorrland E-government transactional users 3% 9% 11% 1% 24% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% Emilia-RomagnaWalesYorkshire and the Humber Islas BalearesVasternorrland Which has led us to revise our ICT plan and give more space to communication and the development of different, more user friendly channels (ie:TDT)

18. 12th October 2005 The UNDERSTAND project 18 Next steps Increase the number of regions using Understand –Strong co-operation launched with statistical offices (Hessen, Italy, Denmark and Norway, Spanish regions) to reach comparability and manage overlapping. –In Italy a special relationship has been set up with ISTAT that has just launched the first survey on ICT usage by local public administration: the ISTS questionnaire includes the majority of the Understand one –Italian network of Regional Competence Centres is actively supporting the project, by the creation of a Understand Centre to transfer know-how to non-partner Italian regions: Puglia and Toscana have already joined in. Add new topics that have been dismissed in this phase for budgetary reasons: schools, health Offer this methodology for the measuring of projects in ICT funded by the Structural Funds : (blue prints, creating a map to measure eu information society progress, starting from the Understand experience, and based on SF funding in ICT projects…but not only ICT)

19. 12th October 2005 The UNDERSTAND project 19 Next steps i2010: has in the e-Europe era benchmarking is an important part of the programme but again it stops at national level. We think we can demonstrate that the regional dimension is fundamental to better comprehend and govern all processes dealing with innovation and would like our approach to be considered and empowered by the Commission itself. All items of the Lisbon agenda could be similarly measured, and have regions as the core of analysis : the approach we applied to Information Society could be applied to the area of innovation as we are doing now with the MERIPA project (FPVI/Innov 4).

20. 12th October 2005 The UNDERSTAND project 20 Thank you for your attention! WWW. understand-eu.net progeur@regione.emilia-romagna.it cmancini@regione.emilia-romagna.it