Project overview

The Flemish region is endowed with a rich and vibrant publishing and audiovisual industry securing cultural identity and diversity of opinion. Furthermore, making the Flemish population interactive by providing different e-services (e-government, e-health, e-learning, etc.) has been one of the main objectives of the Flemish government. Flanders unique position in terms of broadband networks can provide *the publishing sector* with possibilities to develop towards innovative e-publishing. However, very little in-depth research on the e-publishing sector in Flanders has been conducted. Sound fundamental studies on the evolutions in the e-publishing sector and on the drivers changing the industry are an absolute necessity to inform policy and business to take *strategic decisions*.

FLEET is a four-year interdisciplinary research project on FLEmish E-publishing Trends. It is part of the IWT SBO program and started in 2006. A multidisciplinary research consortium was set up including 21 researchers from three Flemish universities (K.U.Leuven, UGent and Vrije Universiteit Brussel) and two Dutch research centres (TNO-ICT and Infonomics EC/DC). In total, nine research departments participate in the project: the centre for Studies on Media, Information and Telecommunication (SMIT), the Centre for Studies on Media and Culture (CEMESO), the Money and Finance Research Group (MOFI-ECON), the interdisciplinary Research Group on Law Science Technology and Society (LSTS), the Interdisciplinary Centre for Law & Information Technology (ICRI), the centre of Usability Research (CUO), the research centre Media and ICT (MICT), The European Centre for Digital Communication (EC/DC) and The Netherlands organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO).

The project brings together members of academia ranging from communication sciences (SMIT, MICT and CUO), sociology (CEMESO) and law (ICRI, LSTS) to economics (MOFI-ECON, ECDC/Infonomics, TNO-ICT) and hence establishes an apparent interdisciplinary approach, which includes social, legal and economic expertise on technical disciplines.

The main objective of this project is to identify, understand and prospect the changing role of information and communication providers and users in a networked society. Ultimately, the research aims at building *a Flemish knowledge platform on E-Publishing*, pursuing a social finality. To this end, FLEET is engaged in mapping the development of the professional e-publishing sector in Flanders. It identifies its actors and analyzes their range of (un)successful products, services and killer applications, their strategies adopted and the business models used. Furthermore, it identifies the changes affecting the labour force within this e-publishing sector, concentrating on the role, function and work division of the journalist as an individual and as being part of a larger editorial and managerial institution. It aims at understanding user behaviour towards and user response on new online products and services and pays attention to the user as producer of content. It investigates how new technologies like P2P have an effect on the distribution and use of news and usergenerated content. In addition, the project investigates the most important legal issues affecting the e-publishing sector in the field of copyright and liability (and if occurring, in other legal fields like privacy and data protection). Lastly, but equally important, FLEET aspires to translate, in an interdisciplinary manner, the research results in recommendations for policy formulation and regulation in terms of legal, technical, economic, pedagogical and social issues, and in recommendations for the sector in terms of business models.

Valorisation is an important goal of the project and integrated in the project as such. Concrete output of the FLEET-research aims specifically to inform, stimulate and support potential economic, policy and societal actors, which have a direct interest in the field. Therefore, FLEET has to set up a *Task Force on e-publishing*. FLEET will support this Task Force both in terms of scientific research and in terms of independent secretariat. Secondly, *an Advisory Committee of Users* (ACU) is formed at the start of the project to function as a sounding board for interim research results and their societal and sectorial relevance. In high-level seminars (ongoing) results are presented and discussed. Specific attention is paid to how research results can contribute to the development of the e-publishing sector in Flanders. Subsequently, the consortium aims to develop several overview databases in relation to the problems of e-publishing. This *e-Publishing Knowledge Database* provides the e-journalist, the e-publisher and the e-user with a handy and up-to-date overview of key issues and status questionis of e-publishing in both Flanders and beyond. Because the topic of e-publishing is absent in most courses on information society topics and on curricula concerning media, journalism and law, the university partners cooperate to establish *an e-journalism course* for the professional journalist. Finally, FLEET has a goal towards governmental policy as well towards that of the sector. Various policy briefs focusing on *policy aspects* from a legal, economic and social point of view, considering an evidence-based policy-approach are published. Within the various research domains, prospective scenarios on e-publishing are developed.

The work programme of FLEET is structured in 5 work packages, lead by different participants in the consortium. Work package 1 focuses on production and is headed by EC/DC. Research in this package aims to identify actors, products and services in the Flemish e- publishing sector and focuses on business models of e-publishing. Work package 2 is lead by CEMESO and concentrates on content generating and investigates more specifically the education and training of journalists, the position and role of the journalistic profession and work organisation, task division and function descriptions in digital newsrooms. In work package 3, SMIT coordinates user-oriented research. There is an urgent need to understand the consultation of news and information via online media substituting or complementing the more traditional forms of news consumption. Therefore the goal of this task is to get a clear picture of the Flemish online news user. All research groups participate in work package 4, which is lead by the project management team. Research in this package intents to identify trends that are shaping the changing landscape and to discover what the actual impact is from new technologies and their application in the digital publishing sector. Cross issues like privacy, copyright, liability, embedded publishing and integration of mayor research results will be put in place. Work package 5 comprises the management of the FLEET-project. The project management team stimulates and ensures the interdisciplinarity and cohesion of the group by organising intermediate events and setting up appropriate procedures across the research teams (such as thematic internal workshops, common papers etc.) and makes sure the external contacts and communication with mayor stakeholders is assured.

Bringing together existing expertise from the submitting research teams constitutes an important advantage for reaching a critical research mass and a long-term knowledge build-up and investment. The bundling of know-how offers more solid guarantees for the continuity and improved profitability of the research outcomes for science, policy as well as industry. By merging exactly these research teams, FLEET offers a substantial surplus value in terms of networking. After all, the different partners bring into the consortium their own different networks, allowing new alliances to be forged. In time, this will lead to an innovation-stimulated environment for e-publishing in Flanders and international partnerships in both research as industry-driven R&D projects in this field as well.