Practical Tools for Regional Development

Since its inception, it has been an important aim of EMERGENCE to ensure that the project’s research results are made available in an easily useable way to hands-on real-life decision-makers.

Over the past months we have been working hard on two new tools that we hope will make this aspiration a reality.

The first of these tools is the eReadiness database, designed to enable you to see at a glance how your region (anywhere in the EU) or country (anywhere in the world) compares with other regions or countries, across a range of indicators associated with success in the emerging eEconomy.

The database can currently be accessed in English, French, German, Dutch, Italian and Swedish. First decide whether you want to look at data at a regional or country level, then select the regions or countries you want to compare, pick the indicators you are interested in: et voila!

Apart from its obvious value for students and other researchers, we hope that the eReadiness database will provide a useful resource for those drawing up plans and proposals to develop local economies and for SMEs seeking to identify niches for their business services in the new global markets.

Complementing this tool is another, specifically designed to help regional policy-makers develop a profile of the strengths and weaknesses of regional economies in order to identify the opportunities that exist for the development of eWork. The EMERGENCE Regional Development Toolkit guides users through the eReadiness database, explaining the importance of each indicator, and pointing to the relevant EMERGENCE research results, as well as offering links to other resources.