Government Policies A lot of policies have been launched at the federal level as well as at the regional ones. They include grants, service to SMEs, project developments through specific IT related institutions. eGovernement seems to be a major concern but no concrete implementation seems to have taken place.

E PROCUREMENT SPECIFIC TO EACH AREA

The Flemish region
IWT, the Flemish Institute for the Promotion of Scientific-Technological Research in Industry, is a Flemish government institution which supports and stimulates research and technology transfer in the Flemish region.

Bruxels region
- The CIRB (Brussels Regional Computer Services Centre), a public organism created in 1987, has as its aim the computerisation of the public sector in the Brussels Capital Region, including bringing the public sector on the Internet. The government has decided to select an operator suitable for creating a wide-band network in the Brussels Capital Region and to develop a three-year programme to prepare public sector bodies to make optimal use of this network. The Ministry of Telecommunications has allocated BEF 860 million to connect the entire Belgian school system to an RNIS network (64 Kbits minimum).
- Brussels Technopole is a not-for-profit organisation created in 1991 as an initiative of the Brussels Regional Government. Its aim is to contribute to regional economic development by stimulating and accompanying innovation efforts within companies. One of its main domains of activity concerns information and communication technologies.

The Walloon Region (1)
The Walloon government is active through the GDTRE, General Directorate of Technology, Research and Energy. It launched a Regional Innovation Strategy program in 1998 and started to work on a project entitled "Prométhée". The purpose of this project was to design a research and innovation strategy for Wallonia. Currently, the region stimulates technological innovation thanks to different sorts of projects. There are mainly composed of grants.
- International Elite: This program grants scholarships to researchers undertaking work sponsored by a company or one of the Walloon research centres.
- Grants to SMEs
- A new decree was recently set up to develop a new project based on e commerce issues called RIT NTIC (RIT stands for Technological Innovation Responsible entity).
- University research projects (e.g. Wallonia-Development-University)
- Collaboration in the European Union research programs, especially those of the Fifth Framework Programme (EUREKA, COST, ESA...) and international organisations (WHO, UNESCO, NIH, NATO).
- Horizon Europe grant, which covers part of the cost of developing projects with the EUREKA label.
- The Science Adventure Park is an initiative, which has been launched in order to stimulate the interest of young people in research and scientific careers. It includes exhibitions, interactive activities as well as scientific observatories.
 

  GOVERNMENT FEDERAL ACTION

Current Plan

In 1998, the Flemish Administration launched a tender to outsource computer services to the private sector. This involved a major strategic shift, as in the past local and internal computer services in administrative departments worked with different systems, methods and management methods. In the future, the government stresses a single outside source for IT management to take advantage of economies of scale. This will strongly affect computer services in different government departments. Large software houses and IT consulting companies welcomed the move, but local (middle) management is somewhat opposed. The government has decided to continue with the plan.

Different IT Projects

IRC
The IRC network has been created by the EU in 1995. It consists of around 70 Innovation Relay Centres (IRCs) throughout Europe. They have been created in order to facilitate the transfer of innovative technologies to and from European companies or research departments. One is located in Brussels.
SME-Net project
It was started in 1997 by Brussels Technopole to familiarise some 15 Brussels-based small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with the Internet.
Brussels e-commerce (2)
The objective is to test and demonstrate the use of the Internet for conducting business between firms. Brussels Technopole has launched it and puts the necessary infrastructure (hardware and software) at the disposal of a group of some 20 Brussels firms.
IRISweb Project (Interactive Regional Information and Self-awareness through Webculture)
Approved at the end of 1996 by the Belgian Federal Office of Scientific, Technical and Cultural Affairs (OSTC) this project aims to demonstrate a full multimedia high-value-added service.
IRISnet Project (Interactive Regional Information Services Network).
Funded in 1995 by the OSTC, this project looks at workflow and electronic document exchange between administrations through a secure Intranet "PubliLink", using electronic signature via smart card and RSA algorithm, X-400 mail services and additional security features.
MIRTO Project (Multimedia Interaction with Regional and Transnational Organisations).
Funded in 1996 by the European Commission’s DGXIII, this project aims to define and test a new type of interaction between public administrations and citizens, SMEs, and professionals of European metropolitan areas.
CITIES Project (Cities Telecommunications and Integrated Services).
Funded in 1998 by the European Commission’s DG XIII, this project, introduced by the CIRB, will design, implement, test and evaluate a global, co-operative digital platform to support and distribute telematics services and to prepare large-scale deployment of a multilingual, multi-sectoral telematics offer by the public authorities.
Tele-administration.
Launched by the Flemish authorities, it stimulates advanced IT applications in administration, in order to encourage efficiency, distribution of information and new services for the citizens. An internal competition has resulted in the selection of eight projects, funded at 100% for a budget of BEF 100 million (1998-99).
MM Fund.
This program was launched by the Flemish government in 1997-98 in order to stimulate the private sector to produce multimedia services for the general public, using information from the government which is useful for the general public. It had a budget of BEF 50 million for the year 1998-99.
PC/KD
Launched by the Flemish government, this program aims to equip every school with PCs, Internet connection and related software with an estimated budget of BEF 2.6 billion (1998-2001). Good conditions were obtained through special agreements with equipment and software manufacturers. However, every school is free to choose its supplier.

R&D Projcts

Regional Ministry of Walloon
In 1996 and 1997, the Regional Ministry of Walloon called for applications for industrial and academic innovation projects as part of the "From Digital to Multimedia" program. Some 40 projects were selected for implementation and were finalised starting from September 1998. The project’s total cost is around BEF 500 million provided in the form of subsidies to universities and as advance payments to firms.

IWT
Half of IWT’s budget of BEF 3 billion a year is devoted to R&D in ICT, including telecommunications, software and microelectronics.

Brussels Technolpole
It has a mandate to contribute to the development of the regional economy by stimulating innovation, and technology diffusion. It is also an active member of several transnational networks for partner search and technology transfer:
- MIDAS-NET is a network of 23 proactive advisory centres in 18 countries, established under the INFO2000 Programme. Its aims are to stimulate interest in the multimedia market. In Belgium it is a co-operative project among the Brussels, Walloon and Flemish regions and is co-ordinated by Brussels Technopole.
- IWT is an active partner in the EC Innovation Programme.
- Technological Innovation Flanders (TIV), encourages the establishment of commercial partnerships.
- IMEC (Advanced Microelectronics Research and Development Centre) and WTCM (Research Institute for Computer-integrated Manufacturing) have organised some specific diffusion activities on advanced microelectronics and use of IT in manufacturing machines, respectively. Together, they have formed a new IT centre for SMEs.
- Other active groups: VSP (Flemish Software Platform on embedded software); DSP-Valley (on digital signal processing); FLV (Flanders Language Valley, on speech recognition); Medianet Flanders (on telepublishing); and MM-Valley (on multimedia production).
 

  E GOVERNMENT
Belgium has a special role to play in this game since it is at the head of the European commission. In november 2001, 28 members of the European Union have agreed that a higher priority should be given to e-governement and the directions of the egovernment 2002 plan. This declaration is based on several key points:
- security issues
- government service towards citizens
- improvement of democracy
- customized services
This project is significant in the sense that it has succeeded to have a large number of participants and also have received an unanime approval.

The five stars project

In 2000, the federal governement has approved the plan proposed by the Minister of the Telecommunications. It is articulated around five key elements:
- electronic public authorities
- access and know how
- infrastructure
- innovation and knowledge
- legal issues

The plan will be financed from four different sources:
- income from the selling of the 3G licenses (it is expected to be around 11.5 and 15 FB billions between 2001 and 2005)
- existing sources of financing (non inluded in the ICT segment)
- existing sources of financing (from the ICT segment)
- finances from the Federal Company of Participations (around 1 FB Billion for the same period)

A portal site was launched in July 2001 with some basic applications, which do not seem to have really been developped more.