EU R&D towards the information society-can evolution meet the needs of revolution?

The term information society was used in Europe for the first time in the early 80´s in the context of the Programme FAST (Forecasting and Assessment in Science and Technology) but it was only when the US administration made it a political priority (under the name NII=National Information Infrastructure) that it emerged from the realms of academic interest to become a focus of economic and social change. The basis of what is sometimes called the “2nd industrial revolution” was and is R&D investment. Though some would wish that technology progress would slow down to give them more time to adjust, the potential advantages of pushing ahead with new technology are far too great for this to take place. Europe, which thrived on technological leadership has been sadly falling behind in IT and risks doing so in telecommunications. What has been the role of telecom R&D on the EU level and what, in the light of globalisation, should it be in future? Has telecom a distinct significance in the context of growing interdependence with broadcasting, services and content provision? This paper argues in favour of building on strength in the telecom domain, and avoiding the temptation of confusing the use of similar technology by various sectors with a loss of differentiation of the services and applications. At a time when privatisation and deregulation reduces nature and scale of R&D investments at a national level, the EU R&D investment may become more important than it was in the past. Shadowing of the shift of R&D investments of the telecom operators towards short-term commercial objectives reflected in the Proposal for the 5th Framework Programme risks to compound the exposure of one of the last remaining strengths in the industries of the information society