Joint Research Centre (JRC)

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) is a research based policy support organisation and a Directorate General of the European Commission, providing scientific advice and technical know-how to support EU policies.

The Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS), based in Seville (Spain), is one of seven institutes which are part of the European Commission’s DG-JRC. It was created to promote and enable a better understanding of the links between technology, economy and society. The mission of the IPTS is to provide customer-driven support to the EU policy-making process by researching science-based responses to policy challenges that have both a socio-economic and a scientific or technological dimension.

The Information and Society Unit (IS Unit) at IPTS supports the overall formulation and implementation of appropriate Information Society strategies, policies, regulations and actions contributing to a competitive, innovative and inclusive European Information Society. In particular the IS unit complements technology-push approaches to the development of the European Information Society with socio-economic impact and demand analysis. Its mission is to support the acceleration of the development and deployment of the European Information Society and to contribute to rethinking its ICT R&D system.

Within the IS unit, the Techno-Economic Foresight for Information Society research action has as its objective to develop an emerging future vision with the aim to contribute to better understand the way ICTs could impact society, especially as regards the analysis of user perceptions, attitudes, needs and their role and contribution to innovative processes. Research focuses on areas that mostly affect individuals considering their current and future needs and will explore their way of life supported by Digital Technologies (‘Living Digitally’). It especially studies the conditions and attributes that affect consumer/citizen confidence in technological and market innovations and specifically address the way digital technologies will affect identity and investigate the need to balance the fruition of advanced e-services and the call for more end-user control over their personal data.