35015 - ECONOMIA DELLA SOCIETA' DELL'INFORMAZIONE LS

Conoscenze e abilità da conseguire

This course aims at making students aware that we belong to a wider community than that of our own country, highlighting some aspects of the evolution competitive enterprises in a society transformed by technology, globalization and interconnections. The course provides an overview of the European Union's industrial competitiveness and then a description of the EU research, innovation, and technology policies within the context of the knowledge-based society, considering their common objective of achieving a greater competitiveness and sustainable growth of the EU economy.

The course also includes an analysis of some of the EU policies that are more strictly linked with the research and innovation policy, that is, the policies concerning the creation of an internal market, the competition policy and the economic and monetary policies.

Course objectives

Students actively participating in the course, studying the proposed materials of instruction and regularly involved in the on-line e-learning community will be able to:

• describe the sectors of excellence and of competitiveness of the European industry
• describe the community policies for sustainable development
• describe the community research and innovation policy
• describe the Lisbon strategy
• describe the transformation of enterprises that face the challenge of the information society and of globalization
• access information sources on Research and Development in the EU
• describe the institutional structure of the European Union, the foundations of its policies, and the changes introduced by the ongoing enlargement and by the Reform Lisbon Treaty

Contenuti

Course contents

The course is divided in two parts:

• an overview of the EU member States from the point of view of the competitiveness of their economy;

If we compare some aspects of the EU economy with those of the U.S. economy, it emerges that the difference in the standard of living is linked to differences in the economies of these two areas. Such differences rely in the percentage of population in working age involved in production activities, in the level of education and lifelong learning, in the diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICT), in the level of private and public investments in research and development (R&D), and in the companies' capacity to reorganize, innovate and face the challenges of globalization. This comparison also shows that, even though the European industry lags behind the one in key sectors linked to the new economy, it is, however, successful in other sectors, including some high-tech sectors. The sectors where the European industry beats the competition are mostly mature sectors where the challenge concerns quality rather than price.
The competition is however not only with the U.S. and other emerging economies are changing the rules of the game. In addition excellence is not the only yardstick, since new consumers consider than good enough products and services are better than the best ones for price conscious consumers.

• a study of the EU research and innovation policy within the context of the knowledge-based society.

The European Union is a region with high labor costs. The costs for salaries, social services, education, health, and environmental protection can be only partly compensated by high productivity, high efficiency in the public administration, removal of customs barriers, and elimination of currency conversion costs. The possibility to compete on the world markets depends on the capacity to characterize the superiority of European products and services for their quality, innovativeness and ability to satisfy the requirements of a diversified and ever changing market. The superiority of European products and services in terms of quality may allow them to be competitive despite the high labor cost and living standard within the Eur15.

This course shows that the future competitiveness of the European economy with respect to both the traditional competitors and the new great economies of the Asian emerging countries depends on the European capacity to ensure a competitive advantage at the quality level. This could be achieved through a series of strategic actions, the most relevant of which are the increase in public and private investments in education, training lifelong learning, and research, the alignment of the research policy in the whole Union with that of the most advanced EU member States, infrastructural investments in information and communication technologies, and the making up of the delay in the implementation of the objectives set by the European Council of Lisbon in the year 2000.

Students enrolling in this course are supposed to attend all lectures and to actively participate in the asynchronous e-learning activities.

Schedule
starting on Monday 6 October 2008

Monday 09.00-12.00 R&S

Tuesday 09.00-11.00 R&S

Wednesday 09.00-11.00 R&S

Testi/Bibliografia

1. Attilio Stajano "Research, Quality, Competitiveness - European Union Technology Policy for the Information Society" Springer 2006 --( a Second Edition Springer 2008 is in print and might be available in October 2008) available in the library and sold at libreria Minerva and on line bookshops (es. Deastore , Amazon.co.uk UK ).  An initial 2004 edition in Italian Attilio Stajano "Ricerca, Qualità, Competitività" was published by Clueb is also available in the library and sold at libreria Minerva and on line.
2. Pascal Fontaine "12 lectures on Europe" European Commission 2006 (will be available on the elearning platform)
3. Facts and Figures European Commission 2005 (will be available on the elearning platform)

Metodi didattici

Face-to-face lectures and elearning: see STRUMENTI.

Modalità di verifica e valutazione dell'apprendimento

The course is worth 3 credits, granted to students declared Eligible (Idonei) in the final exam.
Students are eligible if they get 60% as a total score, combining three weighted contributions:
Intermediate written test 30%
Final written test    40%
Participation in on line activities 30%

Strumenti a supporto della didattica

Educational approach
Face-to-face lessons are integrated by an asynchronous interaction on an e-learning platform with the view to building an on-line learning community where students are empowered to developing contents and skills.
Instructions for the enrolment to the e-learning platform will be given on this URL.

Link ad altre eventuali informazioni

http://stajano.deis.unibo.it/

Orario di ricevimento

Consulta il sito web di Attilio Stajano