The Digital Business Ecosystem concept emerged worldwide as an innovative approach to support the adoption and development of ICT. This concept, which has been coined initially in 2002 in Europe, aims at implementing the ambitious objectives set at Lisbon Council: higher growth, more and better jobs and greater social inclusion, keeping in mind the peculiarities of the European development, mostly based on a diffuse network of SMEs and local innovation systems.
Today, whilst even the most extensive centralised software environments
have the ambition to form "Digital Ecosystems", the European vision
of Digital Ecosystems is becoming mature. Following the pioneering
work and the preliminary achievements,
Europe is now developing a longer-term
vision and an evolution strategy.
The Digital Business Ecosystem topic has been included in the FP7
Framework Programme, in i2010 and in the i2010
local agendas, in several Regional Workplan,
but is not included among the topics of the the first two years of the ICT-FP7
implementation, described in the Workprogramme
2007-2008 and in the draft of the Workprogramme 2009-2010 .
The following web-pages present the major information resources related to this concept and related activities. Since by definition, the topic is complex, evolving, and a variety of ecosystems exist, the following references may show a diversity of views and approaches, corresponding to the interests and background of the authors/groups.
ICTs play a key double role:
The Digital Ecosystem aims at contributing to the achievement of the Lisbon
objectives, providing SMEs, including micro enterprises, ICT applications and
services which improve their efficiency, business integration and synergies
within EU territories, but also enabling the integration of local value chains
within the global market.
These applications and services are tailored on SMEs local needs and are formed
by the dynamic integration of several components, which are provided by different
organisations scattered around the Europe or the World
.
In this way the local ICT industries will maintain and enlarge its knowledge
and capacity to develop
and to deploy ICT applications and services.
A natural life ecosystem is defined as a biological community of interacting organisms plus their physical environment.
In the same way, a business ecosystem is "the network of buyers, suppliers and makers of related products or services” plus the socio-economic environment, including the institutional and regulatory framework.
A digital ecosystem is a self-organising digital infrastructure aimed at creating a digital environment for networked organisations that supports the cooperation, the knowledge sharing, the development of open and adaptive technologies and evolutionary business models.
The digital ecosystem approach transposes the concepts to the digital world, reproducing the desiderable mechanisms of natural ecosystems. As several interacting natural ecosystems exist, several digital ecosystems exists due to differentiation and the development of endemic product and services tailored to specific local needs.
A digital ecosystem results from the combination of :
- the free digital ecosystem knowledge- and service-oriented
- the digital components, services and the formalised knowledge which "populate" such infrastructure
A digital ecosystem means to be the ICT-enabling technology for business ecosystems based on the dynamic and amorphous interaction among a multiplicity of small organisations.
A Digital Business Ecosytem or Innovation Ecosystem results from the structurally coupled and co-evolving digital ecosystem and business ecosystem. A network of digital ecosystems, will offer opportunities of participation in the global economy to SMEs and to less developed or remote areas. These new forms of dynamic business interactions and global co-operation among organisations and business communities, enabled by digital ecosystem technologies, are deemed to foster local economic growth. This will preserve local knowledge, culture and identity and contribute to overcome the digital divide.
The digital ecosystem research area aims at developing the ICT-enabling technologies and paradigms that are needed to support the emergence and sustainability of knowledge-based networked business ecosystems: geographic (or virtual) areas where specific policy initiatives will foster growth, improve innovation, productivity and social inclusion, through the optimal use of local assets and the global interaction empowered by ICT. The support to the knowledge sharing, the establishment of worldwide value chains and to transitory business networking will promote global cooperation and alternative ways of developing software and conducting business.
The key enabling technologies developed within the digital ecosystem research
aim at providing a knowledge- and service-oriented
infrastructure that supports the spontaneous composition, distribution, evolution
and adaptation of ICT-based services. This platform should allow the SME software
industry to independently develop (and disseminate on the network) services
and software components which will be composed forming complex, evolutive and
adpted solutions. These technologies allow the spontaneous development and the
cooperative provision of services and solutions, without the need for any keystone
player, central coordination or central point of control/failure.
The digital ecosystems address in parallel the issues of "ICT adoption" and "ICT development and service provision", supporting:
In order to realise the potential of the digital ecosystem vision, a multi-disciplinary approach will be adopted to specify, design and, implement the building blocks of a digital ecosystem infrastructure. The main scientific task is to translate the concept developed for interpreting social organisations and living organisms and converting them into a set of appropriate concepts and operative models for the development of the digital software ecosystems - targeted at small organisations.
Research should develop the basic theories and technologies needed for structuring and for the bottom-up spontaneous deployment and evolution of digital ecosystems. The transposition of behaviours and architectures from natural to digital and to economic systems requires to build new knowledge and the integration of R&D from several disciplines.
Given its holistic approach, the DBE requires multidisciplinary fundamental research integrating the following main areas and their communities:
In September 2002 the e-Business Unit -SMEs area of the European
Commission, DG-INFSO has published on the go-digital
website (Background
- Go-digital
homepage
During the fourth quarter of 2002, a sequence
of workshops were organised to verify the interest of the European research
community in investing in the Digital Ecosystem area. An additional objective
of the workshops was to disseminate the information and to improve and enrich
the digital ecosystem concept.
This concept was included in the FP6 IST work programme in the Strategic Objective 3.1.9 Networked Business and Government.
The April 2003 call for project proposal of the FP6-IST work programme included in its focus "IST as driver for small business and government reorganisation through local development processes including small business ecosystems" and "multidisciplinary researches into complex adaptive and self-organising systems" within the strategic objectives "3.1.9 Networked Business and Governments" .
Several research groups presented proposals for RTD projects proposals
in the Digital Ecosystems area. A panel of independent experts evaluated
these submitted proposals, and selected for funding under the available
budget one large Integrated Project: DBE
- Digital Business Ecosystems.
This first FP6 project on Digital Ecosystems started its
activities in November 2003 and is due to complete them in October 2006.
In April 2004 was created the sector "Technologies for Business Ecosystems", within the European Commission, as part of the Unit "ICT for Enterprise Networking" (DG-INFSO/D5) of the EC’s Information Society and Media Directorate-General of the European Commission. The www.digital-ecosystems.org website was established to provide further information about this sector, and the EC scientific officers Francesco Nachira or Marion Le Louarn can be contacted in case further information are needed.
In May 2004, the ICT for Enterprise Networking projects were grouped into four clusters, one of which is the "Technologies for Digital Ecosystems" cluster.
In April / May 2005, a second cycle of workshops has been organised for re-tuning the research needs and the priorities in the digital ecosystems, producing a position paper which defines the context and set up a research agenda. You can find here the main papers about this reseach area, the past and future events, and the latest slides presented.
The digital ecosystems, while sharing some common protocols and enabling technologies, are developed and grow independently at local level. The local ecosystems implement policies of technological transfer and of innovation and contribute to build the European research Area. A growing number of innovative regions and areas are joining the initiative.
In January 2007, with the EC reorganisation for the FP7 the EC sector "Technologies for Digital Ecosystems" was closed. The research is continuing withing the cluster of running EC-FP6 projects, the further development is done by open source community, by running European, National and regional projects; the deployment of a network of digital ecosystems is extending at regional level through REDEN, the "Regional Digital Ecosystem Network"
The digital ecosystem objectives are in line with the one of the objectives expressed in the communication i2010 "A European Information Society for growth and employment", i.e. to define e-business policies aiming to remove technological, organisational and legal barriers to ICT adoption with a focus on SMEs. Digital ecosystem topic is present and well-described within the Seventh Framework Programme (2007-2013) of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities. The research activities on ecosystems are described within the FP7. It will be funded only if the WPs (workprogrammes) adopt the indications of the Framework Programme and includes it in the text. The WP2007-2008 has not included the Digital Ecosystem researches. The WP2009-2010 is going to be drafted by the end of 2007.
A cluster of EC FP6 projects has been established. This cluster of project cooperates in order to continue the scientifical and technical development, to make evolving theoretical framework; together with a larger community.
The digital ecosystems, while sharing some common protocols and enabling technologies, are developed and grow independently at local level. The local ecosystems implement policies of technological transfer and of innovation and contribute to build the European research Area. A growing number of innovative regions and areas are joining the initiative.
In January 2007, due to the non-inclusion of the Digital Ecosystems in the WP2007-2008, the EC sector "Technologies for Digital Ecosystems" was closed; no new research projects will be launched within the IST FP7 programme in the period 2007-2008. Nevetheless, the digital ecosystem research community is growing; their activities are widespreading and the research results have been transferred to the market. The research is continuing withing the cluster of running EC-FP6 projects, the further development is done by open source community, by running European, National and regional projects. The network of digital ecosystems region is attracting more regions, through REDEN, the "Regional Digital Ecosystem Network".
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