The FISTERA Delphi examined the period to 2010 and beyond. 2010 is the date to which the Lisbon Objectives (i.e. improvement of job & wealth creation; competitiveness; social cohesion & inclusion; and environmental quality in the European Union) are oriented, and is thus an important reference point. But the full implications of many emerging IST applications are unlikely to be fully realised until after that date, and the European Information Society will certainly continue to evolve beyond then.

The study is intended to inform discussions around the future Framework Programme (FP7). It is mainly focused on prospects for the EU25, and many of the experts consulted come from the EU15 and New Member States (NMS); but we also have some participation from experts from other countries. Where appropriate, results are disaggregated by region, so we can compare views of experts from different locations.

• We asked how far EU organisations associated with IST and applications areas were capable ofdeveloping and exploiting IST in the various areas. The typical picture was that most EU organisationswere felt to be average, while a few were felt to be cutting-edge.
• A very similar picture emerged when we asked about the preparedness of research communities to seize new IST opportunities in the various application areas. Again, it was common for most researchers to be felt to be “moderately” well-prepared, with only a couple of areas (e.g. transport) being seen as ones where researchers are generally well-prepared. There may be a slight tendency for the situation to be somewhat better for private sector.
• The outstanding result of the survey is the strong endorsement given to one particular application area - “Education and Learning”. This repeatedly emerges as an application area for IST that contributes to numerous EU social and economic goals and is central to the construction of a European knowledge society. It is, however, a typical application area in terms of European capabilities and preparedness being average and moderate, respectively.
• Education emerges as an area that is important across a range of six EU goals. More generally, however, there is some divide between applications which are seen as contributing to more “social” goals (social cohesion, social inclusion), and those which contribute more to “economic” goals (competitiveness, job creation, wealth creation). (Environmental goals are rather more closely associated with the economic than the social goals, in terms of the application areas that contribute most to them.)
• IST applications in government, social welfare and public services, and cultural diversity contribute to many EU goals. However, applications in work organisation and in management are seen as contributing particularly strongly to the economic goals.
• It will be interesting to explore further in the IST Futures Forum why application areas like leisure and recreation, ageing and security were seen as contributing to EU goals to a limited extent only. This is rather surprising given the huge markets that exist around these areas, and the implications for job and wealth creation that follow.
• There was not a strong consensus on the major problems impeding development of IST applications, with none of the problems standing out as compared to others. The main problems were seen as those concerning social inequalities in access to IST, and lack of adequate finance for innovations.
• The challenges seen as confronting Research and Development in EU IST were more differentiated in terms of the numbers of respondents identifying them as important. The two issues which received most endorsement were establishing more user-friendly systems, and enhancing the security of transactions and personal information. (Note: a possibility that we shall explore with the IST Futures Forum is that here “security” is taken to refer to the development of IST systems that are less vulnerable to hackers, viruses, etc. while the application area of “security” is seen more as involving counterterrorism and similar issues around physical wellbeing.) Interestingly, improving IPR protection came last among the challenges we proposed.
• There was similarly a fairly strong pattern of emphasis where it came to actions that the EU would need to undertake, with the two topics Social and institutional innovations, and Reducing the “digital divide” coming ahead of many other actions – including such familiar ones as Improving the communications infrastructure; Developing new & improved IST applications, and achieving Better IST training and awareness programmes.
• There are many intriguing variations across regions and occupational groups, though most of the outstanding results are replicated across these different disaggregations more often than not. We shall be using the IST Futures Forum to examine explanations of these variations in more detail. Through the report we have also tried to highlight those results where regional or occupational views differed.
• Results also showed that the majority of respondents see National governments, Large firms in IST and Small and medium sized firms in IST as the ‘key players’ improving IST applications in nearly all areas. In this respect the EU is believed to significantly contribute to the improvement of applications in four main areas: Social welfare and public services; Cultural diversity; Transport & Work organisation.