Characterizing and comparing the evolution of the major global economies in information and communication technologies

AbstractIn this paper, we characterise and compare status and evolution of the ICT industry of the six major global economies in ICT: China, the EU, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the USA. For this, we employ official data covering the period 2006–2009. Our analysis shows that although the EU is the largest economy of the world, it is the least ICT-specialised economy of all six major ICT economies. The USA is clearly the top global player in ICT in many respects. In both ICT Manufacturing and ICT Services it has the largest Value Added, BERD, BERD intensity and labour productivity. We further observe that China has, by far, the largest number of employees in both ICT Manufacturing and Services, while its level of ICT BERD remains low. China is however an emerging economy and economic indicators of its ICT sector have strongly grown from 2006 to 2009. Japan׳s ICT sector has a larger weight in the national economy than those of the USA, EU, and China. Moreover, it is the country from which the highest number of ICT patent applications originate. We also find that, of all six major global economies in ICT, Taiwan and Korea have the most ICT-specialised economies, with a strong orientation towards Manufacturing. Finally, we discuss selected results of our analysis and conclude the paper with tentative policy implications for the EU

The 2011 Report on R&D in ICT in the European Union

This report is the 2011 edition of a report that is published annually. It presents all the data available on ICT R&D private and public expenditures in Europe, at sector, country and company levels, and from an international perspective (benchmarking). It provides data up to 2008.JRC.J.4-Information Societ

On the design and development of webinos: a distributed mobile application middleware.

As personal devices become smarter, opportunities arise for sharing services, applications and data between them. While web technologies hold the promise of being a unifying layer, browsers lack functionality for supporting inter-device communication, synchronization, and security. To address this, we designed webinos: a cross-device distributed middleware providing interoperability, compatibility and security for mobile web applications. In this paper we present a case study of the webinos project, showing how the architecture of webinos was specified, designed and implemented, and reflect on several lessons learned

The 2010 Report on R&D in ICT in the European Union

This report is the 2010 edition of a report that is published annually. It presents all the data available on ICT R&D private and public expenditures in Europe, at sector, country and company levels, and from an international perspective (benchmarking). It provides data up to 2007. The second part of the report includes a thematic analysis on ICT R&D internationalisation.JRC.DDG.J.4-Information Societ

High power continuous laser at 461 nm based on a compact and high-efficiency frequency-doubling linear cavity

A Watt-level continuous and single frequency blue laser at 461 nm is obtained by frequency-doubling an amplified diode laser operating at 922 nm via a LBO crystal in a resonant Fabry-P\'erot cavity. We achieved a best optical conversion efficiency equal to 87% with more than 1 W output power in the blue, and limited by the available input power. The frequency-converted beam is characterized in terms of long term power stability, residual intensity noise, and geometrical shape. The blue beam has a linewidth of the order of 1 MHz, and we used it to magneto-optically trap $^{88}$Sr atoms on the 5s^{2}\,^{1}S$_0$ - 5s5p\,^{1}P$_1$ transition. The low-finesse, linear-cavity doubling system is very robust, insensitive to vibrations, and is compatible with a tenfold increase of the power levels which could be obtained with fully-fibered amplifiers and large mode area fibers.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Technology roadmap for cold-atoms based quantum inertial sensor in space

Recent developments in quantum technology have resulted in a new generation of sensors for measuring inertial quantities, such as acceleration and rotation. These sensors can exhibit unprecedented sensitivity and accuracy when operated in space, where the free-fall interrogation time can be extended at will and where the environment noise is minimal. European laboratories have played a leading role in this field by developing concepts and tools to operate these quantum sensors in relevant environment, such as parabolic flights, free-fall towers, or sounding rockets. With the recent achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation on the International Space Station, the challenge is now to reach a technology readiness level sufficiently high at both component and system levels to provide "off the shelf"payload for future generations of space missions in geodesy or fundamental physics. In this roadmap, we provide an extensive review on the status of all common parts, needs, and subsystems for the application of atom-based interferometers in space, in order to push for the development of generic technology components

Technology roadmap for cold-atoms based quantum inertial sensor in space

Recent developments in quantum technology have resulted in a new generation of sensors for measuring inertial quantities, such as acceleration and rotation. These sensors can exhibit unprecedented sensitivity and accuracy when operated in space, where the free-fall interrogation time can be extended at will and where the environment noise is minimal. European laboratories have played a leading role in this field by developing concepts and tools to operate these quantum sensors in relevant environment, such as parabolic flights, free-fall towers, or sounding rockets. With the recent achievement of Bose–Einstein condensation on the International Space Station, the challenge is now to reach a technology readiness level sufficiently high at both component and system levels to provide “off the shelf” payload for future generations of space missions in geodesy or fundamental physics. In this roadmap, we provide an extensive review on the status of all common parts, needs, and subsystems for the application of atom-based interferometers in space, in order to push for the development of generic technology components

Characterizing and Comparing the Evolution of the Major Global Players in Information and Communications Technologies

In this paper, we characterize and compare, using most recent official macro-economic data, the evolution of the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) industry of the major global players in ICT: China, the European Union (EU), Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the USA. The ICT industry includes IT and telecom hardware manufacturers, telecom operators and software and computer service firms. It provides technologies and solutions necessary for the development of the digital economy and society. This analysis is particularly relevant for policy makers since the ICT industry and ICT-enabled innovation make an increasingly important contribution to economic growth. Our research is part of the policy support provided by JRCIPTS to the Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology of the European Commission (DG CNECT).JRC.J.3-Information Societ

Characterizing and Comparing the Evolution of the Major Global Economies in Information and Communications Technologies

In this paper, we characterise and compare status and evolution of the ICT industry of the six major global economies in ICT: China, the EU, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the USA. For this, we employ official data covering the period 2006–2009. Our analysis shows that although the EU is the largest economy of the world, it is the least ICT-specialised economy of all six major ICT economies. The USA is clearly the top global player in ICT in many respects. In both ICT Manufacturing and ICT Services it has the largest Value Added, BERD, BERD intensity and labour productivity. We further observe that China has, by far, the largest number of employees in both ICT Manufacturing and Services, while its level of ICT BERD remains low. China is however an emerging economy and economic indicators of its ICT sector have strongly grown from 2006 to 2009. Japan׳s ICT sector has a larger weight in the national economy than those of the USA, EU, and China. Moreover, it is the country from which the highest number of ICT patent applications originate. We also find that, of all six major global economies in ICT, Taiwan and Korea have the most ICT-specialised economies, with a strong orientation towards Manufacturing. Finally, we discuss selected results of our analysis and conclude the paper with tentative policy implications for the EU.JRC.J.3-Information Societ

The 'Innovation Radar': A New Policy Tool to Support Innovation Management

In this paper we describe a new policy tool to support innovation management and increase the innovation impact of research and innovation programs. With nearly 80 billion Euros over a period of 7 years (2014-2020), Horizon 2020 is the largest ever publicly funded research and innovation program in the European Union. Cutting-edge technologies are being developed within the program and a significant part of these technologies could be commercialized. But not all technologies and innovation with commercial potential actual reach the market. The questions are why, and what additional actions are needed on the part of the policy makers to address this problem? To this effect the European Commission developed and successfully tested an "Innovation Radar" in the part of the program that focuses on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and their applications. The Innovation Radar focuses on the identification of high-potential innovations and the key organizations developing these innovations in the program. Our paper presents the Innovation Radar (IR) methodology which was developed by our team jointly with the team from European Commission's Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content & Technology that manages the ICT part of Horizon 2020. The paper then presents the results of its pilot application. Approach and Data. The IR methodology is based on assessment of innovation and new technology ventures. The IR uses two composite indicators aiming at capturing the heterogeneity in innovation activities and innovators across projects. First, the "Innovation Potential Indicator" provides a holistic view of the innovation potential of projects. Second, the "Innovator Capacity Indicator" is capturing the innovator's capacity in conducting innovation activities. Each of these two indicators includes several sub-indicators. The IR characterizes innovations with respect to their technical readiness, innovation management and market potential. For innovators -usually researchers- it delivers information on their ability to innovate and their environment. We applied the OECD/JRC methodology to construct composite indicators. The data used in the paper was collected via a structured questionnaire during the IR pilot phase from May 2014 to January 2015 on the occasion of annual projects reviews conducted by external experts (projects typically run for 3 years). Results overview. Out of the 2600 projects running at the time, the IR scanned 280 projects. Over 500 innovations with market potential were identified, or on average nearly two new or substantially improved products or services within each project. The IR pilot phase provided in particular evidence that while innovators demonstrate high levels of technological expertise, they usually pay less attention to the business-related dimensions. The most common needs expressed by innovators are partnerships with other companies, business plan development and expanding to more markets. They less frequently mention needs for incubation, investment training, or participation in accelerators. More than 40% of the innovators mention lack of financing as a major external bottleneck to innovation exploitation, although interestingly only 5% have sought or are planning to seek private or public funding. Regulation issues and IPRs are also considered as important bottlenecks. Impact of the IR covers 3 main dimensions. It can: 1. Provide structured and quantified intelligence on innovations and innovators in publicly funded projects and use this intelligence to design customized support to those projects and organizations 2. Create bridges between innovative organizations/projects and external stakeholders such as venture capitalists 3. Provide feedback on the effectiveness of the program in funding innovation, thereby enabling the policy makers to improve its impact. Having completed the IR pilot phase and analyzed the collected information, it can be concluded that, for the first time, policy makers and project participants can obtain up-to-date structured information on the innovative output of the projects, and that the IR demonstrated its real potential as a policy tool to support innovation management.JRC.B.6-Digital Econom