Annexes to COM(2000)323 - Multiannual Community programme to stimulate the development and use of European digital content on the global networks and to promote linguistic diversity in the Information Society

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dossier COM(2000)323 - Multiannual Community programme to stimulate the development and use of European digital content on the global networks and ...
document COM(2000)323 EN
date December 22, 2000
ANNEX I


ACTION LINES

The action lines are a means to implement a European approach to the development of the digital content industries. They will contribute to the strategic objectives of the eContent programme, that have been defined as follows:

- helping to stimulate the use of and access for all to the Internet by increasing the availability of European digital content on the global networks to support the professional, social and cultural development of the citizens of the European Union and facilitating the economic and social integration of nationals of the applicant countries into the information society,

- stimulating access to and use of European digital content potential, especially promoting more effective use of information held by the public sector,

- promoting cultural diversity and multilingualism, especially in the languages of the European Union, in digital content on the global networks and increasing the export opportunities of European content firms and in particular SMEs through cultural and linguistic customisation,

- creating favourable conditions for the reduction of market fragmentation and for the marketing, distribution and use of European digital content on the global networks to stimulate economic activity and enhance employment prospects, safeguarding cultural diversity, optimising the European heritage and facilitating access to knowledge.

The three action lines of the new programme are strongly intertwined. Thus, linguistic aspects are essential for the cross-border exploitation of public sector information, facilitating access to capital for Internet start-ups is fundamental for the language industries, public sector information is an opportunity to be used by Internet firms in collaboration with public sector bodies, strategic views to be elaborated in close collaboration between the public and the private sectors will help identify emerging priority areas, etc.

The eContent programme aims at supporting projects that fulfil the aims expressed above and present some common features. They should be:

- an instrument against the barriers that prevent, at European level, the establishment and functioning of the single market in the areas they address,

- high risk - high reward projects,

- cross-sectoral and transnational, and

- scalable and act as multipliers,

- user-orientated.

Application of existing technology (state of the art) will be required for the projects.

1. IMPROVING ACCESS TO AND EXPANDING USE OF PUBLIC SECTOR INFORMATION

The Green Paper on public sector information in the information society, published in January 1999, triggered a discussion at European level on the issues of access to and exploitation of public sector information. This discussion has contributed to raising awareness in this field among public and private parties and may be an important basis for improving the conditions of the exploitation in Europe of content with a high added value in educational, cultural, social and professional terms and for the development of new multimedia goods and services, while safeguarding wide access to it. At the same time, experiments of public/private partnerships based on the principle of mutual benefit, started under the INFO2000 programme, should be accelerated and expanded. Furthermore, participation of European Union applicant countries in the initiatives of this action line will facilitate future integration. A better management of information (for example in the field of land registers, cultural heritage, or multilingual access to public sector information) is of vital importance in these countries for creating a transparent legal framework as well as the functioning of the internal market after accession.

1.1. Experiments in concrete projects

The public sector collects and produces vast amounts of information, much of which is of interest to individuals and businesses, and which can be the raw material for value-added information services produced by the content industries. There are however, many barriers for the transformation of this potential into usable products and services. These barriers lead to uncertainties, which in turn result into a lack of investment from both the public and the private sectors, degrading the level of services for users. Projects that can be used as examples of good practices and that will allow to identify practical problems in public/private partnerships, will help to redress this situation. These projects, while safeguarding wide access to information in a multiplicity of languages on the global networks, will foster public-private partnerships, serving as catalysts to further developments in this field.

Preliminary actions have started under the INFO2000 programme, that supported a limited number of pilot and demonstration projects. Given the huge potential of this domain, experiments with public-private partnerships, aimed at the exploitation of public sector information with a European interest, will continue. Within this action line the use of language technology applications will be promoted among the administrations in Member States, and the European Union institutions.

Projects will address the main barriers hampering the development of a single market in public sector information, such as the possible need for common standards (for example in collecting methods), or the need for transparent pricing for public information access and use in the various Member States. This will be achieved in areas of public interest, such as cultural heritage, health or education applications, but also of more commercial interests, such as geographic information, business, environment, or tourism.

Application of different and emerging technologies (e.g. mobile applications) will be encouraged.

Furthermore, there will be room within this action line for projects forging links between the content industries and public sector bodies in the candidate countries, increasing the availability of reliable information of the public sector for business and citizens.

1.2. Establishment of European digital data collections

The pilot-projects as described in point 1.1 usually cover a limited geographical area within Europe. The presence on the global networks of information collected and held by the public sector in the form of consistent datasets shared between a large number of European countries will have to be stimulated. The absence of complete datasets at European level constitute indeed one of the barriers to the exploitation of the content potential. Therefore, in addition to the experimental projects, the establishment of European data collections will be stimulated, through financial support, to work on pan-European metadata for public sector information and through projects collecting information covering a significant number of European Union Member States. This work will be conducted in accordance with Community law provisions regarding data protection.

An example would be a project linking and harmonising the formats of the repositories of the national mapping agencies.

Interest and commitment of public and private parties will be decisive for selecting the type of data and the areas to be covered, as well as the contribution of such projects to the achievement of public interest objectives, inter alia, in cultural, educational and social fields.

2. ENHANCING CONTENT PRODUCTION IN A MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL ENVIRONMENT

Adequate support for multilingual and cross-cultural information provision and access is a key enabler for the development of a European mass market for on-line products and services, and for a wider deployment of European content in other regions. The technological aspects of this process are well covered within the fifth framework programme. RTD activities, however, do not address the fundamental issue of turning technological advances into enhanced business capabilities and market penetration, including new export opportunities.

The programme will promote and support actions aimed at encouraging cooperation in the European content and language industries, thus helping to improve the competitive positions of both sectors. These actions constitute a natural follow-up to the actions carried out under the precursor MLIS programme, adapted to the needs of an increasingly digital and global environment. Special attention will be given to SMEs and start-ups, user aspects and to less widely spoken European Union languages and the languages of accession countries.

Demonstration and infrastructure projects will be complemented by targeted accompanying actions aimed at documenting best practice, promoting exchanges and increasing awareness, and achieving cross-fertilisation of industrial, professional and national activities in the field.

2.1. Fostering new partnerships and the adoption of multilingual and multicultural strategies

The overall aim of this sub-line is to foster competitiveness and provide improved market opportunities for European content and language businesses, in particular innovative SMEs and start-ups, thus enhancing Europe's multilingual and multicultural presence on the global networks. Participants in these actions may be:

- commercial content players (creators, designers, packagers and distributors) who intend to enhance their offerings (e.g. web portals, mobile services) and penetrate new markets,

- corporate content players who intend to establish or strengthen their presence on the e-commerce scene (e.g. web marketing and retailing).

Such actions are expected to encompass, for example:

- projects addressing the multilingual exploitation of public sector information, in continuity with action line No 1,

- projects connecting the knowledge in the areas of cultural creation, education, marketing and technology.

Private and public-sector content providers and distributors will be stimulated to make their products and services available in a broader range of languages, throughout the design, authoring and publishing chain. IT vendors and telecom operators will be encouraged to provide platforms and delivery channels enabling multilingual information access and delivery of content meeting the cultural requirements of the target communities. The providers of language services will be encouraged to adapt their offerings to match an expanding customer base in the content industries.

It should be noted that the language issues are particularly relevant when taking into account expansion in geographical coverage of the programme in the central and eastern European countries.

2.2. Strengthening the linguistic infrastructure

The availability of an adequate linguistic infrastructure is a prerequisite for the timely and cost-effective creation, customisation and exploitation of multilingual content. It is the structural basis for any sustained internationalisation and localisation effort, especially for less widely spoken languages where market forces often provide insufficient incentives. Strengthening Europe's linguistic infrastructure implies establishing an open framework comprising interoperable multilingual resources encompassing for example multilingual glossaries and ontologies, translation memories and terminology collections, and the associated tools such as computer assisted translation. These resources must be pooled together to yield widely accessible repositories which can then be exploited by content providers and distributors, and by suppliers of language services.

This sub-line shall include broadly-based efforts geared towards:

- language centres: networking of regional, national and subject/discipline specific data centres, coupled with user-friendly search aids, on-line referral and brokerage services, user advice and testing of language tools, framework agreements and technical standards enabling private and public sector stakeholders to share and reuse existing and upcoming resources,

- experimentation with IT tools: integration and field testing of Internet-based software tools in the areas of content localisation management and workflow; collaborative production, use and maintenance of distributed language repositories; and cross-lingual search and gathering of digital content,

- new resources: creation and transnational distribution of new datasets for those languages and subject areas where no suitable resources exist and market forces have provided insufficient incentives to address the issue.

Projects and other actions established under the last point will address as a matter of priority less widely spoken European Union languages and the languages of the accession countries. Specific actions geared towards the languages of major European Union trade partners may be undertaken where justified in terms of Community interest and export potential. In addition, adequate support will be provided for collaborative industrial training, with a view to addressing the current and foreseeable shortage of specialist skills.

3. INCREASING THE DYNAMISM OF THE DIGITAL CONTENT MARKET

Fragmentation in the digital content market and the resulting uncertainties for marketplayers tend to lead to inertia and underinvestment. This has a negative impact on economic growth and employment. Support for the development of a common vision, access to available forms of investment capital and a unified European approach to trade rights on-line for multimedia production are therefore needed to speed up new initiatives and investments and to improve the overall environment for players in the digital content markets.

3.1. Bridging the gap between digital content industries and capital markets

Content industries experience specific difficulties in accessing investment capital necessary to develop new digital content applications and increase their innovative capacity. Corrective actions are needed to improve access to investment capital in order to bring out the full potential and improve business opportunities of European digital content industries in terms of valorisation of the European cultural heritage, business models, innovative applications, mobile multimedia, etc. These actions will complement other Community programmes as well as national initiatives in accordance with the subsidiarity principle.

In order to encourage the exchange of information and best practice, the focus of these actions will be on supporting the dissemination of expertise present in business universities and training centres and in the new economy in matters such as management and administrative skills, as well as deploying distance-learning facilities. Activities will have an experimental character, searching for new ways of bringing together ideas and funds.

3.2. Rights trading between digital content market players

The trading of rights between rightholders, producers of new digital services and products and players from other parts of the value chain is essential to the development of content industries. The effectiveness and efficiency of the multimedia rights clearance have a strong and direct impact on the functioning of the content industries. The integration and interoperation of distributed specialised clearance services at European level was stimulated under INFO2000 through feasibility studies, prototype, standards and pilot system development. Further support is needed to arrive at a unified European rights clearance approach.

The focus of future actions will be on extending multimedia rights clearance pilots, on supporting the creation of multimedia rights clearance centres in Europe and on specific measures to support candidate countries, less advanced sectors and specific public sector applications.

3.3. Developing and sharing a common vision

A vision of future developments shared by both private and public parties will reduce uncertainties and speed up concrete initiatives and investments. Continuous interaction between market players and public parties will be of increasing importance as a key mechanism to foster the evolution of the vision-building process. The regular and consistent observation of the converging content and languages market developments in close contact with market players will constitute the information basis needed to update the vision building process.

The focus of actions will be on defining and collecting relevant statistical data, on identifying and promoting European best practices and on developing and updating a continuous benchmarking with third countries.

The programme execution will be supported by actions aiming at the dissemination of the results (e.g. publications, worldwide websites, conferences showcasing projects) and strategic studies highlighting emerging market phenomena.


ANNEX II


INDICATIVE BREAKDOWN OF EXPENDITURE

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ANNEX III


THE MEANS FOR IMPLEMENTING THE PROGRAMME

1. The Commission will implement the programme in accordance with the technical content specified in Annex I.

2. The programme will be executed through indirect actions and wherever possible on a shared-cost basis.

3. The selection of shared-cost projects will normally be based on the calls for proposals procedure published in the Official Journal of the European Communities. The content of the calls for proposals will be defined in close consultation with the relevant experts and according to the procedures referred to in Article 5 of the Decision. The main criterion for supporting projects through calls for proposals will be their potential contribution to achieving the objectives of the programme.

4. Applications for Community support should provide, where appropriate, a financial plan listing all the components of the funding of the projects, including the financial support requested from the Community, and any other requests for or grants of support from other sources.

5. The Commission may also implement other more flexible funding schemes than the call for proposals in order to provide incentives for the creation of partnerships, in particular involving SMEs and organisations in less favoured regions, or for other exploratory activities in different segments of the multimedia content market. These schemes might be operated on a permanent basis.

6. The detailed arrangements for the procedures referred to under point 3 will be implemented after consultation of the committee referred to in Article 4 of this Decision, following the rules of Article 5 of this Decision, in accordance with the Financial Regulations. They will be published in the Official Journal of the European Communities.

7. Projects fully financed by the Commission within the framework of study and services contracts will be implemented through calls for tenders in accordance with the financial provisions in force. Transparency will be achieved by publishing the work programme and circulating it to interested bodies.

8. For the implementation of the programme the Commission will also undertake preparatory, accompanying and support activities designed to achieve the general objectives of the programme and the specific aims of each action line. This includes activities such as: studies and consultancy in support of the programme; preliminary actions in preparation of future activities; measures aimed at facilitating participation in the programme as well as facilitating access to the results produced under the programme; publications and activities for the dissemination, promotion and exploitation of results: brochures, electronic publications (CD-ROMs, DVD, web presence, etc.), participation at exhibitions, preparation of press-related material, etc.; analysis of possible socioeconomic consequences associated with the programme; and support activities such as spreading the use of digital content standards, and encouraging skills development at European level.

9. All projects receiving financial support under the programme will be required to display an acknowledgement of the support received on the products.