Your views on the future are welcome
Esprit, as a European Union R&D programme, needs to constantly maintain an awareness of possible future developments in industry, society and technology, over both the shorter and longer term. One of the most important ways of doing this is through consulting with industry, researchers, social partners, and indeed everyone concerned with the future of industry in Europe and the information society.
We invite you to be part of this consultation process.
We would like to have your views on:
- trends in industry and in information and communication technologies in the first decade of the next millennium;
- associated R&D needs.
We have formulated 16 questions, listed below, to guide you in giving us your views.
Please e-mail your responses (to as few or as many of the questions as you wish) to views.esprit@dg3.cec.be
Please include in your message a brief description of who you are and what you do.
As we expect to get a substantial response to our questions, we will not be able to comment individually on what you send us. However, you can be sure that your views will be fully taken into account in Esprit's thinking about the future.
In the first decade of the next millennium ...
- What will be the key markets for industry in Europe?
- What sectors or markets will create the most jobs?
- What types of enterprise will be the main sources of job creation (large companies, SMEs, micro-enterprises)?
- What aspects of industrial change will be most significant?
- Will the trend towards smaller enterprises continue?
- How widespread will "virtual enterprises" be as an industrial structure?
- What will be the relative economic importance of manufacturing and service sectors? Will the distinction between those sectors be as it is now, or will we be using a different classification?
- What will be the economic and industrial meaning and significance of "knowledge-based society"?
- What will be the main trends in mobility, education, training, health care, home life, leisure, and work organisation as they affect technological development and markets?
- What demographic/sociographic trends (e.g. ageing) will be significant for technology and markets? What will their impact be?
- What will be the relative importance of new technology development and best practice in use? (Currently the ability to make full use of technologies by industry is seen as a challenge comparable to the development of new technologies.)
- What will be the main barriers to industry getting full benefit from information and communications technologies?
- What will be the major outstanding regulatory challenges in the information society?
- What will be the industry sector profile of ICT needs, and how will this affect R&D needs in different sectors?
- How will R&D best serve risk-sharing, spin-offs, and technology exploitation?
- What will be the key technologies for industry? (Consider all information and communication technologies, and related areas including industrial technologies and bio-informatics.)
Please e-mail your responses (to as few or as many of the questions as you wish) to views.esprit@dg3.cec.be
Please include in your message a brief description of who you are and what you do.
Thank you in anticipation.
The URL of this document is /esprit/src/views.htm
It was last updated on 19 April 1996.
