ACTIVITIES :: @Work :: Our Mission and Objectives

Mission statement

The unit "New working environments" manages effectively and professionally high level IST RTD and contributes to policy developments in new working environments designs and organisation of work in the networked knowledge-based economy, incorporating innovative ICT; to facilitate creativity and collaboration, to resource-use efficiency, value-creation and extended work opportunities for all in various settings.

The unit focuses on the areas of eProfessions and individually driven working, new work space designs, knowledge management in information dense and integrated, often media-rich working environments, including mobility and multimodality, collaborative work and organisations, ambient organisations, communities of practice and new organisation of work.

The unit fosters grid technologies in new work environment and organisations, targeting towards integrated applications and platforms. An emphasis is also put into the industrial advanced applications for e-work.
The work of other units within the Directorate, DG and Commission services is supported by relevant competencies of the unit in collaborative manner. The unit contributes widely to the relevant policy development both within the DG and also across the services of the Commission.

The unit manages efficiently the legacy Marie Curie Fellowships and related accompanying measures, and provides expertise on Human Resources and Mobility in Structuring the ERA, doing both in collaboration with other relevant services, mainly DG RTD.

The unit is organised in a teamworking manner addressing modern management and work practices as well as work relationships to effectively and efficiently produce results in the tasks assigned to the unit.

The focus and objectives are in

eProfessions and eIndividual in work
Research focuses at the new ICT supported roles of e-workers (such as skilled and unskilled workers, managers, technicians, engineers), e-professionals and knowledge workers, aiming at wide participation of all to the e-economy.

Collaborative eWork and work organisation
Research focuses on organising and managing collaborative working environments, including industrial work spaces, supporting knowledge work and decisions making. The work covers the organisational change management, competencies and capacity sharing and new technology introduction to work environments leading to new organisation of work, including issues like distance management, use of common virtual workspaces etc.. Communities of practice, centerless work organisation, disappearing organisations (e.g. peer-to-peer) in GRID environment and dynamics of cybercommunities are also dealt with in this area. This area contributes significantly in the policy development both within the DG and other services in the Commission.

Knowledge and capability management
The research focuses on acquisition, sharing and retaining of knowledge and capabilities in multimodal and media rich mobile working (e.g. engineering) environments, and networking of competencies to enhance the value of collaborative workspaces and multidisciplinary work.

New workplaces
The research focuses on continuous, extended and mobile work environments for individuals and groups in dynamic networked environments, incorporating innovative technologies, such as natural multimodal interfaces, simulation, visualisation, virtual reality and wearable computing to open, interoperable application platforms and protocols enabling end-to-end seamless mobility. This area covers also research in trust and security when sharing the workspace and protection of privacy in working environments.
New organisation and methods of work in sectorial and regional settings
The research work focuses on development, integration and demonstration of individually driven work environments, work organisation and methods in an integrated and innovative way, structured around either sectorial or multiregional clusters. The work develops and verifies new work concepts in given settings. Examples of this work could be found in organisation of the work around extended products and services covering their entire life cycle.
Sustainable development and corporate social responsibility
The work focuses on the changing roles of work communities in the society, the socio-economic and legal aspects of the change and also supports policy work in the area. Intangible investments in ICT, human capital, employees and workplace and the organisation of work is part of the research under this priority area. The work has a strong policy component.
Marie Curie Fellowships and other accompanying measures
The work focuses on training researchers who will work in, and sometimes on the new work environments.

Our Priorities

The priorities of the unit are supported by linking the research objectives with legal and policy issues as well as interservice work, in order to increase the impact. The unit will link particularly to the Directorate INFSO A (Strategy and eEurope) as well as to the units eBusiness and eGovernment within the DG INFSO, and to the following other Commission services: DG Entreprise, DG Employment and social affairs, DG Internal Market, DG Health and consumer protection, DG Competition, DG Trade, DG Enlargement and through the integrated pilots to DG Regional Policy / Inforegio and DG Agriculture.

The unit will run an effective website centering around the eWork and eOrganisational aspects of the Information Society.

The unit puts a significant emphasis on the international collaboration with the enlargement countries and industrialised third countries, e.g. the USA, Canada and Japan, in various frameworks, e.g. the IMS (Intelligent Manufacturing Systems) initiative. This international collaboration is supported by conferences and workshops besides the normal project work. Stimulation work is done also in the context of EU initiatives towards Asia (specifically China), the Mediterranean countries and Latin America.

Bror Salmelin, Head of Unit


Published by :
Last update: 24/11/2006