The European Commission, Directorate General Information Society and Media (DG INFSO), has issued a framework contract for the analysis of impacts yielded by RTD projects funded under its Fifth Framework Programme in the field of Information Society Technologies. The WING project (Watching IST Innovation and Knowledge) will provide a systematic, structured and coherent process of data collection and analysis of the impact of completed IST RTD projects in a number of thematic domains.
A first set of domains is to be investigated during 2006. This will include the eInclusion domain which will be analysed by empirica.
Starting from a generic research methodology ensuring the comparability of results over all the domains to be assessed under the framework contract, the study will in a first step refine this methodology to meet the more specific needs of the eInclusion domain. In this context a multi-method approach will be pursued including
a quantitative project survey targeted at the participants of 42 FP5 projects to be included in the analysis
qualitative expert interviews
a domain analysis describing the eInclusion domain and how it fits within the market and the socio-economic system as well as the identification of key stakeholders, and
a stakeholder analysis to identify participation patterns among and the coverage of key market/socio-economic players, as well as to gain an expert-based domain insight and assessment of the role of EU research in the field.
All information gathered will be analysed and synthesised into a comprehensive domain report drawing conclusions on the main contribution of the domain to the research and innovation system in Europe.