Last updated

Best e-Europe Practices                           

Beep Knowledge System                                   

About the Beep Project

The Best eEurope Practices (BEEP) Project collected, analysed and refined good practices (best practices) in a variety of socio-economic areas, by collecting case studies and coding them according to a wide variety of indicators . This resuledt in an extensive Beep Knowledge System relating to employment and skills, the digital SME, social inclusion and regional cohesion. The Beep project widely disseminated these results both via electronic and traditional methods.
The project was funded by the European Commission under the Information Societies Technology (IST) Programme of the 5th Framework programme.
The Beep knowledge base is still used and expanded in a variety of ways.

Work and Skills in the European knowledge society

The work and skills domain focuses upon an individual’s skills and working environment and how they interact within the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry, taking into consideration the metamorphosis/changes in the new forms of working life. For example post-Fordism, lean production, flexibility, out-sourcing, group work, clustering, are some of the issues that are shaping our work-life balance. The concept and idea of a new working life has been described as a new paradigm. It is viewed as a revolutionary shift in the global economy. The link between work and skills in the “new digital working life” can be explored in socio-economic sectors such as;

• diversity in working life
• work organisation
• work environments
• ICT Management
• new media industry development

The Digital SME domain focus is on SMEs best practices in exploiting the opportunities provided by ICT to improve performance.

Attention is devoted to SMEs evolution and to the “external” factors, related to “digital economy”, that directly affect SMEs success and development. This focus will result in addressing:

• structural changes in SMEs organisation and management related to the impact of digital economy
• changes in the competitive scenario that may affect the SMEs evolution
• interventions and policy instruments that have contributed to foster the SMEs adaptation to digital economy.

Social Inclusion in the European knowledge society

The domain ‘social inclusion’ addresses the digital divide in Europe, and particularly those dimensions of it related to income, age, gender, ethnicity or ability. It is assumed that narrowing the digital divide is an important contribution to the larger objective of achieving sustained social inclusion in the information society. Beep showcases good practices aiming towards narrowing the digital divide.

The changes brought about by the ’Information Society’ or ‘knowledge economy’ are normally thought of in global or national terms. But as globalisation and the effects of new information and communications technology (ICT) have affected us all wherever we live, they are also restructuring and reshaping the regions, though in a variety of ways and often with highly differentiated results.