The Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative has just published its latest results: NGI Impact Measures and Benchmarks.
The report, produced by HUB4NGI, focuses on the impact measurement process, which included an in-depth survey undertaken from September to November 2018, SURVEY4NGI. Based on these results, the report provides benchmarks for the NGI initiative so far, as well as robust KPIs for ongoing work and roadmapping.
SURVEY4NGI interviewed key players and initiatives in the NGI ecosystem, drawn mostly from the ICT industry. The 63 respondents included technology providers, research projects, EC policymakers and other third-party funding initiatives. Each respondent answered a series of questions to determine their current status relating to the following NGI-focused KPIs:
- Innovation
- Sustainability (economic)
- Collaboration
- Interoperability
- Market Needs
- Social Impact
- User Experience
NGI initiatives performing well
The survey results show that the initiatives are all performing relatively well and demonstrate good marks across the spectrum of KPIs. However, while initiatives scored highly in the Collaboration and User Experience KPIs, those measuring Interoperability and Innovation still have space for improvement. The latter present areas where the NGI can improve in the future.
Report author Richard Stevens from IDC and HUB4NGI, said “Collaboration scored best, with 91% of initiatives saying they work with at least one partner. This is a positive result for the NGI ecosystem, as collaboration is so important in what the NGI is trying to achieve”.
The report also documented the high results in terms of Social Impact. Around 90% of initiatives indicated their solutions addressed at least one of the social challenges identified in the survey. These included: speed of communication, access to information, public transport, clean energy, citizen fitness, e-learning, protection from cyberattacks, population health, security of communities, collaboration, and waste reduction.
Innovation had one of the lowest scores, indicating a focus area for future work. “However,” Stevens explained, “it should be noted this does not imply initiatives are not innovative in absolute terms, but rather they are generally more about incremental, as opposed to radical innovation.”
Recommendations
Overall, the recommendations for future NGI activities can be summarised in the following actionable points:
- Foster initiatives’ go-to-market effectiveness, helping start-ups and SMEs move from a fully-funded projects status to solid commercial entities.
- Support innovation development and scalability, improving the provision of shared infrastructures, tools and data that can be leveraged by innovative companies, especially SMEs, in order to validate their technologies and turn their proof of concepts into market ready products.
- Help different industries and projects speak to each other, by fostering the creation of connections between different and potentially far domains and industries, creating the basis for synergies and complementarities between different sectors.
- Keep pushing sustainable development, continuing supporting the vision of a sustainable Europe with dedicated actions and specific innovation programmes.
- Expand existing technology focus while scanning promising emerging themes.
Read the full report “D1.3 NGI Impact Measures and Benchmarks” here