Study on the Role and Impact of Professional and Scientific Societies in ICT Research, Education and Innovation

This new report summarises the results of the SMART study, carried out under a mandate from the European Commission to investigate the current situation and the dynamics of the ICT societies in Europe and to recommend strategies that may help overcome ICT society fragmentation, increasingly seen as a major bottleneck to their future development.

The study gathers and analyses information about ICT societies, performs an assessment of the actual contribution of societies to ICT research, education and innovation, analyses the impact of "participative" technologies and services, such as web 2.0, on the future of scientific societies, particularly in enabling new ways of producing & sharing knowledge and consensus building.

It furthermore analyses how the world-wide competing societies head-quartered in Europe are perceived by researchers, industrial stakeholders and policy-makers.

One of the key conclusions of this study is that the current set-up of ICT societies in the EU does not optimally address the key challenges of globalisation and multi-disciplinary.

The document also provides several recommendations, ideas for further research and activity and a list of European ICT societies.

Download the study