Lambert Van Nistelrooij

4th Internet Governance Forum 14-18 November 2009 Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt

Lambert van Nistelrooij

Workshop 346: Open knowledge environment in bridging the digital divide for innovative research and development

16 November 2009 Lambert van Nistelrooij, Member of the European Parliament

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, My name is Lambert van Nistelrooij and I have been member of the European Parliament since 2004. In 2006 I was present in Athens where the Internet Governance Forum was established. As member of the European Parliament's Industry and Research committee I have been since then involved in ICT and internet for the past five years and hope to do so in the coming years. As spokesman for my political group in the Regional Development Committee I closely monitor the EU structural funds and see where the money is spent. While we are waiting for the Lisbon Treaty to enter into force on December 1st, after the Czech President Klaus was the last one to sign on November 3rd, we are preparing for a new mandate in which I expect ICT and internet accessibility to be a topic of high priority on the European agenda.

Agreement on Telecom Reform Package Last week, on November 5th, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers reached an agreement on the EU Telecoms Reform, after intense negotiations. I was part of the EP delegation to the Conciliation Committee and was relieved to see that, at nearly one o'clock at night and after hours of debate, we could finally agree on the text. The reform, initially proposed by the European Commission in November 2007 substantially strengthens competition and consumer rights on Europe's telecom markets, facilitates high speed internet broadband connections to all Europeans and establishes a European Body of Telecoms Regulators to complete the single market for telecoms networks and services. It also encourages competition and investment in next generation access networks.

1 The Conciliation Committee at work during the final negotiations of the EU Telecoms Reform.

Euro commissioner Viviane Reding called it a strong signal that the EU takes fundamental rights very seriously, in particular when it comes to Information Society. She said the reform would substantially ensure the openness and neutrality of the internet and would boost investments in telecom markets. Furthermore, the new reform provides internet freedom for all. I totally agree on this. Internet freedom has become a fundamental right of citizens, they are guaranteed by the European Convention for the protection of human rights and in general EU law. These rights are necessary and proportionate within a democratic society and I am glad that the reform specifically provides in this again.

The telecom reform is a big step forward in ICT policy, especially when we bear in mind that first awareness on ICT policy only came about in the 1980’s. ICT developments have gone rapidly from then on. I believe that I sent my first email in 1997. Now, live in a society where many aspects of our daily life are increasingly dependent on technology based products, ranging from e-mails and the internet to digital television, automatic teller machines and ever more refined inventions. We could not imagine our lives without ICT. ICT plays an essential role in today’s digital society. Government's services, transactions and interactions between citizens and companies could nowadays not work without ICT. When I think of the daily emails I receive in the Parliament I believe that my work would have been completely different if it was not for internet alone. We can rightly say that over the past two decades our economy has transformed from an industrial economy to a knowledge society.

The EU as world leader in mobile phone use In a knowledge society it is important that we stay up to date with the latest developments in ICT. Over the past four years, ICT policies have confirmed their role as a major driver of Europe’s economic and social modernization. As European

policymakers we consider active use of ICT as a substantial contribution to better prospects for

2 work, information or social relations. ICT helps to realise major advances in social services, healthcare or education, and is a major contributor to productivity growth and opens up many business opportunities. It is widely recognized that ICT contributes substantially to growth and jobs in the EU. This could be in the ICT sector but also in other economic sectors that could benefit from ICT innovations. Europe is not doing so badly. Most of the European citizens have one or more mobile phones. Europe is world leader in mobile phone services with the number of subscriptions at 119% of the EU population in 2008 (from 84% in 2004). Europe is ahead of the United States (87%) and even Japan (84%).

More and more Europeans are online. Europe has become the world's leader in broadband internet with 114 million subscribers. On average 93% of the Europeans have access to high-speed internet, but unfortunately rural areas still have less access to high speed internet. Especially in countries such as Greece, Poland, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Romania in which less than 50% of the rural population has access to high speed internet. In these countries, sometimes, even fixed telephone networks are not available in rural areas.

Increasing broadband internet coverage This is a point of concern for European policymakers. In the Ministerial Declaration of 2006 in Riga, many European countries committed to a series of e-inclusion goals and targets; including reaching more than 90% of the EU population by broadband coverage. We add great value to broadband because it enables people to have access to advanced public services and richer multimedia content for entertainment, training and work. It also boosts businesses: with broadband connections, companies are encouraged to develop online services or to use the internet to connect with their customers or suppliers. They can expand their business worldwide.

In the current financial crisis, the creation of new jobs and boosting the economy is necessary. A recent study ('The impact of broadband on growth and productivity', Micus Study 2008) shows that investment in broadband will help create around 1 million jobs in Europe and could boost the economy by €850 billion between 2006 and 2015. Consequently the European Commission has made available € 1 billion to increase broadband internet coverage for all citizens by 2010 as part of the European Economic Recovery Plan. This

3 money will be used in addition to private investments and national funding. The main goal is to obtain broadband internet in rural areas that currently do not have internet. The money will be injected into the existing Rural Development Programmes. Projects will be selected by member states and will be managed by the national rural development managing authorities. As the spokesperson for my political group have I been closely involved in this Recovery Plan. In the agreement with the Council and the European Commission we have accomplished that this money should be spent in the next two years so that the economy can be boosted now. This is good for citizens and business because it keeps the economy running.

Research and development I started this presentation by saying that it is important in a knowledge society that we stay up to date with the latest research and developments in ICT. The European Union adds great value to research and development and has made a large sum of money available for this. In the Lisbon Strategy of the year 2000 the European leaders have agreed to make the European Union the most dynamic and competitive knowledge based economy in the world by 2010. Having nearly 500 million EU citizens with fully high speed internet access would add immensely to this objective. This objective has been ambitious: In the first decade of the 21st century, the EU lags behind other areas of the world regarding ICT R&D, particularly the US, Japan and South Korea. The European Union therefore launched ambitious research programmes to counter this deficit and to support forward looking R&D. Under this objective, Europe adopted its largest budget ever for ICT research and innovation.

In 2000, the EU decided to create the European Research Area (ERA). The objective of this research area is to enable researchers to move and interact seamlessly, benefit from world- class infrastructures and work with excellent networks of research institutions to share, teach and use knowledge, develop strong links with partners around the world and to optimise and open European, national and regional research programmes in order to support the best research throughout Europe and coordinate these programmes to address major challenges together.

4 Sharing knowledge The need for sharing knowledge between research institutions and industry has become increasingly evident in recent years. In the March 2008 summit, EU leaders highlighted the "free movement of knowledge" as a priority to respond to the challenges of globalization and transform the EU into "a truly modern and competitive economy". This free movement of knowledge, also referred to as the "fifth freedom", should be created by removing barriers to the cross-border mobility of researchers, students, scientists and academic staff and by providing researchers with "better career structures".

Open innovation From this perspective, more and more companies are developing strategies for R&D through an open innovation approach, combining in-house and external resources, and aiming to maximize economic value from their intellectual property, even when it is not directly linked to their core business. Open Innovation is a term promoted by Henry Chesbrough, a professor and executive director at the Center for Open Innovation at UC Berkeley. Chesbrough referred to open innovation as "a paradigm that assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as the firms look to advance their technology." Open innovation implies a model shift from closed coordination, in which a company should control (the generating of) their own ideas, as well as production, marketing, distribution, servicing, financing, and supporting.

A model shift that is also visible in the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, in which I have been closely involved. This framework programme will last for seven years from 2007 until 2013. The programme has a total budget of over € 50 billion. The 7th Framework Programme is divided into four specific programmes. One of these programmes is cooperation, for which 32.4 billion € has been earmarked. This specific programme supports all types of research activities carried out by different research bodies in trans-national cooperation and aims to gain or consolidate leadership in key scientific and technology areas.

The substantial increased budget for FP7 compared with the previous Framework Programme FP6 shows the high priority of research in Europe. We believe that FP7 is a key

5 tool to respond to Europe's needs in terms of jobs and competitiveness, and to maintain leadership in the global knowledge economy. This money will (for the most part) be spent on funding for research actors all over Europe and beyond, in order to co-finance research, technological development and demonstration projects. Funding is determined on the basis of calls for proposals and a peer review process, which are highly competitive. The Seventh Framework Programme is not solely meant for European partners. It is open to people and organisations from all over the world. It aims at collaboration across borders, open coordination, flexibility and excellence of research and incoming fellowships to foster collaboration with research groups outside Europe. ICT research is one of the key themes of this framework. The EU member states have earmarked a total of € 9.1 billion for funding ICT during the period of the programme.

Joint Initiatives As European policymakers we have launched public-private partnerships. One example of this Joint Technology Initiative is Artemis (Advanced Research & Technology for EMbedded Intelligence and Systems). This initiative was launched in 2008 and has an investment of € 2.5 billion. It addresses embedded computer systems that – while running almost unnoticed by users – improve the performance of all kinds of machines: from cars, planes and phones, to factories, washing machines and televisions. At the moment, 18 Member States are participating in ARTEMIS. In my country, the Netherlands, participants of ARTEMIS are for example Philips Research, Embedded Systems Institute, University of Twente and the Technical University of Delft. Nokia, Daimler Chrysler, Airbus, Ericsson, and Siemens are amongst the other participants.

Another example of a public-private partnership is the ´Ambient Assisted Living´ (AAL) Programme. In 2007 I have been the spokesman for my political group in the European Parliament on this particular initiative. It has been set up as part of the European Action plan for `Ageing Well in the Information Society` that the European Commission proposed that year. The AAL Programme consists of 4 parts: research, development, legislation and cooperation (with industry). AAL research is subsidised by the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). Between now and 2013, the EU, the Member States and the private sector will invest more than 1 billion euro's in research and innovation for ageing well, stimulating employment, innovation, competitiveness and the quality of life of the elderly. Member States and the European Commission are contributing 150 million Euros each. The rest of

6 the money (300 million €) comes from the industry, the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Development (400 million €) and the ICT policy support programme (30 million €). This programme is oriented at the stimulation of ICT development in order to make the ageing stay self-supportive and productive as long as possible. ICT could provide them overcome social inclusion by enabling them for example to speak on line via email or video conversations. They could order their food online if they cannot leave the house easily or they could order telemedicine from home and participate in systems for monitoring and diagnosis via the computer. It is a so-called 'article 169’ international organisation, coupling numerous national research programmes with the aid of EU funds. For example, my country, the Netherlands will receive €1.9 million.

The first 23 projects have started with European funding in 2009. One of these projects for example is Rosetta, a Dutch, Italian, German and Belgian partnership. ROSETTA will help community dwelling people with progressive chronic disabilities such as Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease to retain their autonomy and quality of life as much as possible and to support their (in)formal caregivers by developing and providing an ICT system that offers activity guidance and awareness services for independent living. The project has received 2.3 million Euros of European funding.

I have been actively involved in policymaking concerning these Joint Initiatives. In March this year I have organized a meeting on Joint Initiatives. Currently, 85% of European public research funding is spent nationally without any transnational collaboration between programmes or competition between researchers from different Member States. National programmes are very important, but they often unnecessarily duplicate each other, or lack the scope and depth required to make a significant impact in these major challenges. I believe that these initiatives would have more impact if they include involvement at European level.

7 Initiatives such as Rosetta therefore have my full support. These initiatives are helping EU industry to achieve world leadership and are boosting investment by providing incentives to both industry and member states.

Creating a level playing field It may by now be clear that the European Union adds great value to research and maintain a level playing field. Open innovation and cooperation between different research institutes from all around the globe contribute to this. The Seventh framework programme is open to initiatives of partners from different countries. The importance of knowledge transfer in boosting competitiveness and contributing to the effectiveness of public research is increasingly recognised by Member States of the European Union. A level playing field is important, also on a world scale. Growth and jobs are hampered when ideas, brands and products are pirated and counterfeited, whether by competitors or by organized crime. So intellectual property rights ("IPR's") such as patents, trademarks, designs, copyrights or geographical indications are becoming increasingly important for European inventors, creators and businesses. However, if we want to succeed in a global knowledge economy will eventually have to embrace open-source and open knowledge practices in order to remain innovative and successful. As the internet changes, and matures, it is becoming a more viable option for collaboration and commerce. ICT technologies continue to become more affordable, in part due to open-source solutions, and accessible across the globe.

We would all benefit from a climate of trust in the safety and reliability of the internet. That is why we have to respect the level playing field and work towards an open knowledge society. This would be a win-win situation for both.

------

Contact: European Parliament*ASP 12 E 142, Rue Wiertz 60, B-1047 Brussels* Tel: 0032 (0) 2 284 74 34 * Fax. 0032 (0)2 284 94 34 [email protected]