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Making it Happen

Why is it that some places can make things happen and others can’t ?

The  European Commission is looking for input on how funding and other rules might be changed.

What are the  enablers and barriers.  ? Who has the key? Why can some do and some not? Why are Structural funds not being used to the maximum? How they can be used? What are the key bottlenecks in the existing regulation? What can we do to make sure they are addressed next time round (2014-2020)?

This Financial Times article  explains for example  the lack of takeup of EC Structural Funds

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7c7dbaa8-fbf2-11df-b7e9-00144feab49a,dwp_uuid=0a9bac24-837f-11df-8451-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1LAvfjnQn

Add your comments and join the discussion.

 

 

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10 Responses to Changing EC Funding

  1. Vin Sumner says:
    May 7, 2011 at 12:31 pm

    Is it time the competition laws were reviewed. The system seems to favour large institutions and despite the intent is often an inhibitor to progress and innovation. Stateaid clearly happens all the time … countries and banks … but when a city of place wants to make a difference they have to jump through endless hoops. Real change requires boldness.
    Vin Sumner

  2. Vin Sumner says:
    May 7, 2011 at 12:33 pm

    Is the problem with ERDF funding, on broadband for example, not been spent by cities and regions about inability to match funds or about stateaid and the need to be more creative about service delivery options at a local level.

    Vin Sumner

  3. Vin Sumner says:
    May 7, 2011 at 12:33 pm

    I don’t think this is an easy issue to solve but that doen’t mean it isn’t worth trying. Match funding alone is not the issue, although it would be good to be more innovative about how match funding could be used. The challenge is the complex inter-relationship between all of the regulatory factors, i.e. financial regs, State Aid, planning frameworks, overall regulation (e.g. through OFCOM in the UK) etc., so even if you were mote flexible with matc funding you could still get caught with big challenges on State Aid. One of the areas we are discussing across the dozens of small scale community led next generation access projects in the UK is the idea of enabling innovative delivery mechanisms to have a degree of flexibility with as much regulation as possible. So, if an initiative becomes a social (economy) enterprise, and ensures that it is a fully open access network, then it should get the opportunity to have more flexible match funding arrangements and have a very fast track on State Aid or even be exempt from State Aid. We’ll be posting more on this over the next few months and for more info see the UK’s Independent Networks Cooperative Association (INCA) at http://www.inca.coop

    Dave Carter, Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA), Manchester City Council (UK). http://www.manchesterdda.com

  4. Alexandra Hayles says:
    May 9, 2011 at 9:16 pm

    I also feel that information and knowledge is feeding the need for control and risk management. However, as the regulatory and administrative mountains grow, the view of the horizon gets blocked and society no longer controls and manages the risks that it was determined to keep under restraint. Instead, regulators and administrators strengthen the brakes of the economy making it more difficult to transact and do things. For an entrepreneur, the regulatory and administrative barriers to entry are large. Furthermore, it is the more established companies who have the lawyers and administrators to continue with their business.
    Controls and regulations have a legitimate purpose, but the marginal benefit declines as the administrative and regulatory mountains compete to reach restrictive altitutes.

  5. Vin Sumner says:
    May 11, 2011 at 8:58 am

    New models for financing broadband http://broadbandeurope.wordpress.com/2011/05/01/financing-high-speed-broadband-what-do-you-think/ what do you think ?

  6. Vin Sumner says:
    May 18, 2011 at 8:54 am

    From DAE Goes Local
    How can European Institutions help local developments and boost useful cooperation and smart specialization? What elements should be involved including revision of DAE, funding instruments and research topics? This is about helping regions and cities to define their own LDA’s as an integral pre-requisite for European cooperation, for smart specialization and to make successful use of EU-funding. http://daegoeslocal.ning.com/

  7. jamiyar says:
    May 18, 2011 at 11:42 pm

    es importante utilizar esos fondos pra hacer proyectos que realmente tengan utilidad es el caso de LILACV los ganaderos no quieren que se les de un ordenador gratis quieren que se les facilite el acceso auna informacion que esta en la red pero que les cuesta trabajo acceder pero si se les da una blackberry por la que reciben los resultados de los analisis de leche que para ellos supòne dinero pero ademas la usan y ven que pueden ver noticias , accder y recibir legislacion y subvenciones , contactar con su veterinario, etc… entonces i que quieren la blackberry y entienden lo que les puede aportar las nuevas tecnologias entonces el esfuerzo debe estar en generar las infraestructuras que les permita accder a esea tecnologias como si estuviese en la mayor ciudad del mundo aunque en un lugar lejano y mal comunicado ese debe ser el esfuerzo dale el servicio y eso es lo que ha permtido triunfar entre los ganaderos a LIla cv que nadie les quite su blackberry, gracias

  8. Vin Sumner says:
    May 31, 2011 at 10:17 am

    On Behalf of Raj Mack from Digital Birmingham .s.mack@birmingham.gov.uk>

    The Development of Ultra-fast Digital Networks – A Urban City Perspective

    Background and Introduction
    Birmingham is an urban city that has a population of 1 million and like many other UK and European cities, Birmingham has shifted away from manufacturing to become a more service based and knowledge intensive economy. In particular, Birmingham has seen considerable increased activity within its creative and digital media industries. It is now recognised as UK’s hub for games, interactive digital media with 21% of the UK games workforce based in and around Birmingham.
    Many of these businesses are SMEs and rely heavily on a broadband infrastructure for new product and application development. Many of these businesses have clustered into specific geographical locations and have formed creative quarters within the City. However, their ability to create new and innovative applications and services is limited by the lack of affordable high speed broadband infrastructure.
    The Objective
    Our aim is to support these creative quarter through the development of the Digital districts programme. The aim of the Digital Districts programme is to transform the city into one of the most dynamic and innovative regions in the world in a bid to establish vibrant and flexible business and residential communities. The objective is to build and operate an Open Access Broadband Network Infrastructure covering Digbeth/Eastside and the Jewellery Quarter. This infrastructure will be built and operated in partnership with the private sector and will deliver the following benefits:

    • Provide businesses in the area with access to superfast broadband connectivity. This will be a minimum of 100Mbps symmetrical services up to 40Gbps
    • Lower the costs of connection and rental to end businesses
    • An open access network that will provide a platform to enable service providers to offer a range of innovative and enhanced services to the market
    • Competition in the provision of IT and telecoms services will be encouraged.
    The network (in parallel with other initiatives) will act as a key driver in stimulating inward investment. In particular the media and knowledge based industries in the area will be better served and able to compete effectively on a national and international basis.
    Current Networks
    (i) There is absence of affordable high speed broadband services within the Digital Districts areas.
    (ii) Businesses are largely restricted to basic ADSL services that deliver insufficient upload and download speeds to enable the businesses in the area to compete effectively with those in better served areas.
    (iii) The current telecommunications providers have no plans to invest in the area

    The Challenges
    (i) the UK Government’s definition of superfast broadband is 25 mbps asymmetrical services
    (ii) UK Government funding is mainly targeted at rural areas – they believe the market will deliver to urban areas
    (iii) There does not appear to be a national framework for approaching the EU on urban broadband deployments in the UK
    (iv) Urban cities are usually classified as black areas in state aid terms by the EU as there are often two or more telecommunication suppliers in situ, even though, there are many notspots in cities where incumbents has little or no coverage infrastructure or plans for deployment.
    (v) The EU state aid guidelines on broadband do not take into account of the impact of the rapid growth of ultrafast broadband networks in urban cities and countries across the world; South Korea, Australia, Japan etc.. who are stealing a march on European cities
    (vi) There remain significant barriers and hurdles for accessing structural funds for deployment of ultrafast broadband networks in urban cities despite these funds being largely underspent.
    Our Approach
    We have developed a fully costed business case and are in the process of preparing an ERDF Priority 3 bid. We believe this case addresses the state aid issues and sets out the arguments that it is cities that are the drivers of economic growth and the neighbouring regions are the direct beneficiaries of this growth. As more and more of the population migrates into cities, there is an increasing need to create more jobs and opportunities within cities.
    We have discussed our outline proposals with Neelie Kroes during her visit to Birmingham and her Office has been supportive of these. We have had tremendous support from EU Commission Officers, John Doyle and Ken Ducatel who have provided policy and practical guidance on how to move our proposals forward.
    Our request
    We would like to hear from other cities or regions who are trying to address similar issues and to explore if there are commonalities as well as those who have developed innovative approaches to overcome these issues.

  9. Aleks Blumentals says:
    June 16, 2011 at 5:54 pm

    Vin, Raj Mack
    Digital infrastructure is a great topic. In Riga we are getting under way with a social platform (www.RigaDO.me) to kick-start collaboration on a wide front, with strong local flavour and broadband is a very powerful enabler. But so is face to face technology.

    Face to face social technology underpins trust building. Web enabled processes and technologies then are essential to convert such interaction in viable incomes and benefits. If we think of the Birmingham case what stands out is that the communities formed in close physical proximity and relationships that cannot be created from digital environments. In the case of LILA similarly the relationships of farmers and their laboratories and markets drive adoption. These relationships were there before technology.

    But many areas, especially more backward ones, have not yet explored their own opportunities, and like LILA is doing, they need a bit of help to do that. I think that if we put a bit of attention to develop self-discovery on a broad base, recognise it as a real need and not just as a post-facto change management issues, a lot of the stress of where and how to invest EU funds – which has to do with perceived inequalities – would go away.

    The hard reality is that we(EU) do not have the funds to do all at once, and even if we understand what it takes to be top notch in one place, we are uncomfortable with letting more and more small towns and regions in the dark. The diversity in the Union will pull us apart if we don’t find a solution. A winner take all approach will simply not work.

    The answer lies in the leverage of asymmetries – combining seemingly unrelated factors that create a lot of value – LILA is a case in point. A little technology changing many mindsets, all at once. And I am sure that social interaction and how buy-in was achieved played no small part.

    Birmingham could probably broaden its opportunities linking to nodes in other cities to create a broader front for highly motivated businesses in the gaming IT area.

    In RigaDO for example we are working to enable such social interactions. We have a prototype model that is beginning to be tested. It is open and generic and can be adapted to any situation. So we are glad to take it to other places and test it there. In this model, alignment of people flows first; next come projects and resource allocation which should be much easier and with enthusiasm instead of resistance.

  10. Maurice says:
    June 24, 2011 at 4:22 pm

    Dear all,

    Many of the contributions here bave been on the difficulties to use (ERDF) funding for the roll out of broadband. I agree this is an issue but I would also like to start a debate on problems with current state aid rules for the role out of broadband.

    As you may be aware, the commission is reviewing Broadband Guidelines
    in relation to the state aid. Withing the review process they have started a public consultation on the revision of the Broadband Guidelines.

    For further information, the questionnaire (in all official EU languages) is available at:

    http://ec.europa.eu/competition/consultations/2011_broadband_guidelines/index_en.html

    Replies should be sent until 31 August 2011 to the following e-mail address: comp-broadband-guidelines@ec.europa.eu

    I would be interested to know is someone is intersted to share our responses or to develop some kind of joint input.

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