LOCREGIS II Description

LOCREGIS II

ERDF 98/00/27/221

Project description

Association of the Finnish Local and Regional Authorities

Helsinki 18.1.1999

Contact information

Mr Heikki Lunnas
Association of the Finnish Local and Regional Authorities
Tel +358-9-7712511
Mob +358-50-66725
Fax +358-9-7712726

Email heikki.lunnas@kuntaliitto.fi

0. Summary

As a continuation project to LOCREGIS (LOCal and REGional Information Society), LOCREGIS II builds on the results, recommendations, experience and methodology of its predecessor. LOCREGIS II aims at

maintain the acquis of Locregis – the database, the network, the analytical capacity, the dialogue between practitioners and regional policy makers, between the regional, national and EU level on ICT policy
build on that acquis in the following directions :

developing the use of the evaluation methodology developed in the LOCREGIS action

developing networking and co-operation

seek active co-ordination with other co-operation actions including those supported by the EU and especially RISI/RITTS with the above aims in mind.

The geographical focus of LOCREGIS II as for LOCREGIS will be Objective 1 (and 6) regions but without neglecting other assisted areas especially in Austria, Finland and Sweden, especially as a means of improving the benchmarking and evaluation capability.

The project will begin in the January 1999 and its duration is 16 months.

1. Background

The project LOCREGIS II builds upon the results, experience, recommendations and methodology of its predecessor LOCREGIS (LOCal and REGional Information Society), a project initiated by the European Commission under the supervision of Directorate General XVI. LOCREGIS started in 1996 and finished in the summer of 1998. The main results of the project are available in the Internet: http://www.kuntaliitto.fi/locregis/.

LOCREGIS was co-ordinated by the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities (ALFRA) and its primary target areas were the Objective 6 (sparsely populated) areas in Finland and Sweden and the Austrian Objective 1 (less developed) area of Burgenland.

The main aims of the LOCREGIS included:

The preparation of an inventory of regional and local information society projects co-financed by the EU in the target countries
The identification of the main success factors for regional development that emerge from the local and regional information society projects
The development of methods for project evaluation and best practice criteria
The creation of networks of experts, practitioners and projects

The goals of LOCREGIS can be said to have been successfully met. In the course of the project, LOCREGIS became to be seen also as a tool permitting, among other things:

The gathering of systematic knowledge about the kinds of projects and actions there were in existence and about which regions and sectors in the participating countries were active during the project period.
Encouragement of dialogue and networking between practitioners, and between practitioners and those responsible for public policy.
A better understanding of the qualities that public financial support to project promoters should try to encourage, that is, defining of best practice criteria from the point of view of regional economic development.
Moving towards the deliberate design of bigger and more ambitious actions that could really accelerate structural change, in a manner which reconciles local and regional diversities with national ambitions and priorities.

The idea of deepening the work, results, experience and proposals of LOCREGIS provide a general starting point for LOCREGIS II.

2. The LOCREGIS II Project

The target areas of LOCREGIS II are the Objective 1 and 6 regions in Austria, Finland and Sweden, in the enlargement also Objective 1 regions in other EU countries and regions in similar situations in the candidate member states.

The project starts in January 1999 and last 16 months. The implementation will consist of the following tree main lines:

1. Maintain the acquis of Locregis – the database, the network, the analytical capacity, and the dialogue between practitioners and regional policy makers, between the regional, national and EU level on ICT policy.

2. Build on that acquis in the following directions:

2.1 developing the use of the evaluation methodology developed in the LOCREGIS action (briefly summarised in annex 1) in the following directions:

in support of the design of larger and more ambitious ICT actions at the regional level which can really accelerate structural change

in support of the definition of priorities in the planning process and subsequently monitoring and evaluation during implementation for the next programming periods – in particular by identifying the profile of each participating region in ICT and improving the capacity to provide a benchmarking with best practice elsewhere

as a tool for the project developers to improve the design or develop the monitoring and benchmarking of the projects.

The project will develop and use the evaluation methodology in the close co-operation with the participating regions and in the different circumstances (IS projects, regional strategies, umbrella projects).

2.2 developing networking and co-operation (from the LOCREGIS experiences briefly summarised in annex 2) by

encouraging the creation of similar co-operation and networking platforms according to the LOCREGIS approach, but reflecting also the specificities of other countries and regions. The project team (including project experts from LOCREGIS) will offer technical assistance and advice for this purpose to other EU regions and to candidate countries. The direct funding of such platforms is not included in the LOCREGIS II project.

The project will help to build up networks on tree different geographical areas. One of them will be in northern part of Europe and another on the Mediterranean area. The third one will be decided during the project implementation.

deepening the content of co-operation and networking amongst the original partners by improving further the capacity for statistical analysis and benchmarking comparisons, and continuing the organisation of working groups to explore issues of common interest. In respect of the latter, a link will be made to the support of the creation of similar platforms elsewhere;

within Austria, Finland and Sweden, and eventually including some other EU assisted regions, targeting relatively inactive regions, or imbalances in the project portfolio of certain regions ( for example few private sector projects), to offer support for the strengthening or reorientation of ICT action;

improving the quality of the dialogue between those responsible at national and EU level for ICT policy and those involved in the reality of grassroots action.

3. LOCREGIS II will seek active co-ordination with other co-operation actions including those supported by the EU and especially RISI/RITTS with the above aims in mind. The aim is that these platforms should exchange ideas and methods of work with a view to their mutual enrichment, while keeping their specific character and ambitions.

A special attention will be paid to the survive of the results and products. They should be of the kind to be exploited and used also after the end of the actual project period. The most important means and principles to achieve the aims are:

Dissemination

The project and its results should be as widely known as possible. This can be ensured by an efficient dissemination of information to different levels in decision-making bodies and by engagement of those involved in the development of the project results and products. Internal working methods of the project itself and the co-operation with other projects are the means to further the dissemination of information. The project will actively recommend and support the use benchmarking methodology in the planning and evaluation of the local and regional IS projects.
Quality of the products

Especially the methods related to evaluation should serve different needs of practitioners during an adequate period. This is ensured by paying attention to the experiences gained in different levels of decision-making process.
The database is aimed at to be so wide and user-friendly that its decentralised updating would benefit as many parties as possible also after the end of the project period.
Platforms providing benefits to all partners

Self-sustaining platforms of networking should continue to function also after the end of the project period. This could be ensured by designing the platforms in a way that all the interested parties could easily see the benefits they could provide3. Working plan

The length of LOCREGIS II is 16 months. The intended products will be worked on throughout the duration of the project. The project is divided into two phases, 6 and 10 months

3.1 Phase 1

Phase 1 consists of parallel work to be completed by partners mainly in Austria, Finland and Sweden. One important task is also to find the partners in the new countries and start the work of the different project groups.

Inventory of projects will start in Phase 1 and will be carried out throughout LOCREGIS II.

At the conclusion of Phase 1:

an intermediary report will be issued about the initial findings and the controlling of the results of the first half of the project
based on results of Phase 1, the steering committee will provide a more detailed plan on how the project will proceed in Phase 2.

The intermediary report is linked to the second payment and is presented not later than 6 months after the official start of the project.

It includes:

situation and progress of the works concerning the new platforms: identification of the partners, points concerning the geographical areas Scandinavia/Baltic, Southern Europe, etc.

first updating of the regional profiles,

first analysis works,

situation of the dialogue with the promoters of projects and of integrated process related to regional development and information and communication technologies

Before the end of the phase I the project has to prove interest from the relevant target groups in an appropriate programme of work. If not, the Commission will decide to limit its co-financing to task 1 of the project.

3.2 Phase 2

As the tasks that will have been completed and the results during the first phase will form the basis for the work that will be deepened during the second part of the project, the description of Phase 2 can only be tentative.

Phase 2 consists also of parallel work to be completed in Austria, Finland, and Sweden. During the second phase new platforms will be implemented, the LOCREGIS benchmarking system will be implemented and improved upon, the existing database will be updated and improved upon according to the new partners and their needs.

Toward the end of Phase 2, a common seminar to all partners will be held. The themes of the seminar are benchmarking and impacts of the information society projects.

The draft working plan is Annex 3 of this project description.

4. Partners

4.1 Project Partners

The project partners of the LOCREGIS II are:

Association of the Finnish Local and Regional Authorities (co-ordinator of the project)
ARCO
Wibag
Swedish project partner

Tasks of the project partners

Association of the Finnish Local and Regional Authorities

Co-ordination of the project and project management
Financial administration
Communication
Technical solutions
Dissemination inside Finland and the local authorities
Inventory and evaluation in Finland
Expert work

ARCO

Secretary work
Co-operation with the Commission
Dissemination inside the support partners
Expert work

Wirtschaftsservice Burgenland/BIC Burgenland

Co-ordinating project expert work
Inventory and evaluation in Austria
Dissemination inside Austria and the enterprises

Swedish project partner

Expert work
Inventory and evaluation in Sweden
Dissemination inside Sweden and regional authorities and regional partners

4.2 Regional Partners

Regional partners will primarily be organisations in charge of regional development. An alternative is also to have some organisations implementing regional information society strategies. The objective is to have:

3-4 regions from Finland and Sweden
2 partners from Austria

The tasks of the regional partners are:

Participating in the development of the benchmarking
Providing expertise support to the project with the experts from local and regional projects

Regions

Participating regions from Austria, Finland and Sweden will be decided in the beginning of the project, other regions in the new countries during the implementation of the Phase 1.

The objective is to have in the beginning 10 regions participating the project, including at least 6 regions from the Objective 1 and 6 areas.

4.3 Support partners

Support partners will for the most part consist of national authorities in charge of regional development and structural funds. They will be a part of the expert network in the project on one hand, and on the other hand the target group of the dissemination. The support partners will not directly fund the projects but they will be responsible for their own costs.

5. Ways to work

Because of the large number of organisations and people participating in the project and because of the different cultures the main principles in the implementation will be:

efficient networking and communication
open flow of information

The organisation of LOCREGIS II includes a steering committee and a project management group. For some tasks the management group will select (according to the principles to be decided by the steering committee) working groups to work on some specific issues.

In this project description three working groups are presented. The management group can name also other groups to delegate its work.

The need for a separate steering committee and management group is a question of efficiency. The steering committee – which will be rather large – will be assisted and supported by the management group. The management group will take over many of the practical tasks in the project management.

5.1 Steering Committee

The tasks of the steering committee are:

Development of the main guidelines of the project implementation (in all meetings)
Finalising of the results (in the second and third meeting)

The members of the steering committee are:

All funding partners
Support partners

It is anticipated that the number of the participants in the meetings will be 15-20.

The steering committee will meet 3 times during the project. The first meeting will be held together with the kick-of meeting in the beginning, the second one will be held in the before the end of phase1, and the last one 1-2 months before the project ends. The members of the steering committee will of course have full access to all documents and results during the project and so they will have the possibility to influence the implementation.

5.2 Management group

The task of the management group is, in addition to normal project management, to choose the best possible resources to carry out the different tasks (that are not agreed on in the beginning) needed for the project implementation. The main work needed for achieving the results of the project will be done in the working groups.

The members of the management group will be

Project manager
Project expert
Project secretary
And the representatives named (1 per organisation) by the project partners

The management group will be in charge of the concrete implementation. During the project period, it will have 6 physical and several network meetings. In the beginning of the project, the group will decide not only the dates for the normal meetings but also a framework for the use of videoconference and other similar equipment. The objective is to have a short virtual check-up meeting at least once a month to ensure the implementation of the project and to take care of the management of the change.

The national project partners participating in the management group will be in charge of the dissemination, the inventory of the local and regional information society projects, and the evaluation of the projects in the database.

The management group will also be responsible for the development of the statistical tools and other similar products of the project.

5.3 Working groups

WG 1 Development of the benchmarking

The main task of the WG1 will be the continuation of the benchmarking work done in the LOCREGIS project. The work will include:

Collecting the experiences from the use of the LOCREGIS best practice criteria
Projects that have already finished
New projects under planning
Best practice and its effects on implementation of new projects
If needed reformulating those criteria
Developing the presentation of the criteria (profiles)
Organising discussion workshops
Testing the benchmarking method in regional decision making and programming
Participating in the Internet dissemination and reporting the results of the work

Studying the role of the best practice criteria in relation to new projects under planning and the implementation of new projects is a central task of this working group.

The members of the group will be named so that they will represent different backgrounds and viewpoints:

Core projects
Regional decision makers
National bodies
Commission
Other experts
Management group

WG 2 Networking platforms

WG2 will work to develop the idea of the networking platforms and to start new platforms in new countries. The tasks are:

Collecting the experiences of the LOCREGIS networking platforms
Developing the recommended principles of the networking platforms
Promoting the development of the new platforms in new countries
Reporting the results

The members of the working group are mainly leaders of the local and regional projects, however, the project partners, by providing their expertise, will be closely involved in the process of developing the platforms.

In the LOCREGIS project, the networking of the local and regional project experts was based on the participation of the core projects. The results were good, among them also a number of new transregional projects. The idea of the networking platform will also be one of the main methodologies used in the new project. In addition to the networking itself this platform will be crucial also for obtaining the more common results of the projects, such as development of the benchmarking and regional analyses.

The enlargement of LOCREGIS II to the new regions involves assisting in and promoting the start-up of new networking platforms in the current and new geographical areas.

Participating practitioners, experts, project leaders, and decision-makers in new regions will be introduced to LOCREGIS ideas, methods, and experience. Through their involvement and participation in the start-up of new platforms, the practitioners, experts, project leaders, and decision-makers in the East-European regions will gain practical experience in project work in the EU.

The enlargement will not include direct funding of the new platforms by the project. Participants of the working group will represent:

Core projects in old and new target countries
Management group

WG 3 Analyses of the local and regional information society projects

This working group also continues the development and deepening of the results of the LOCREGIS project. Its tasks will include:

Collecting the results of the LOCREGIS inventories, studies etc.
Analysing the results of the local and regional information society projects in the target countries funded by the Structural Funds
Reporting the results and formulating recommendations for the next programming period

The members of the WG3 will be represent:

Commission
Regional and national decision-makers
Steering committee
Research organisations

5.4 Staff

The project co-ordinator (Association of the Finnish Local and Regional Authorities) will name the project manager, who will, after consulting the project partners, choose one project expert and one project secretary.

The project partners will provide the main resource for expertise needed for the implementation. In order to achieve good results in the issues of the working groups it is also necessary to use the expertise of the regions and local and regional project leaders.

During the preparation of the project plan and the budget, the project partners have agreed that, in order to bring about the above-presented products, there will be a need to use the best possible available resources for some special tasks, including expertise from outside the organisations of the partners. The work of the third parties has been estimated to be a maximum of 25% of the total costs. The use of third-party work will be decided in more detail during the project implementation and it will be reported in the final report.

For the objectives of the project, the active use of all kinds of networking devices (videoconference, email, and traditional intercommunication) will be crucial. For the open flow of information the project will use the possibilities of the Internet to publish just-on-time all the information and documents produced within or outside the project. This is also important for the results of the working groups because most of the participants will not be in the core of the project implementation all the time.

6. Budget

The total cost of the project is 533.458 €. The main type of the cost is the use of the human resources; a half of the entire budget consists of staff costs.

Expert work includes tasks done by the partners and/or third parties under the supervision of the management group. The project expert is a certain person co-ordinating the expert work in the project.

The budget is based on the use of the full personnel costs of the partners. The level of the overheads is 25 % of the personnel costs. Those include also the use of information technology, which is one of the main tools in the project.

The travel costs are 29 % of the total costs. Because of the nature of the project they include also travelling outside the European Union in the candidate member states.