Regione Emilia-Romagna (RER) represents the regional administration for Emilia-Romagna, a region in the north east of Italy with about 4,000,000 inhabitants distributed in an area of 22,120 sqKm. The per-capita GP in 2003 was estimated at about 28,517 € against a national average of 22,429 €. From an administrative point of view the region is made of 348 municipalities, grouped in nine provincial areas.
RER has a well established role in developing policies in support to Information Society as indicated by the Regional Law on these matters. ICT policy is implemented through a three year policy programme, the Regional ICT Plans. The actual Plan includes specific action lines for the implementation of literacy and awareness actions to promote technology use by citizens (with special attention to weaker groups), as well as companies. Amongst them some are aimed at:
- Benchmarking through surveys on the use of internet by citizens, enterprises, public administrations and schools and on the availability of broadband.
- Creating a positive environment for the growth of SMEs to tackle concretely the problem of low e-business adoption by the initiative OPTA (Opportunity by Technology Adoption) which has been underway since 2007.
- Reducing the knowledge divide by the implementation of a programme for digital literacy (Pane and Internet) running since 2009 on the regional territory
- Promoting co-design techniques awareness in the design, implementation and evaluation of e-government services.
The regional government of Emilia-Romagna has a wide experience in the participation in European projects and currently participates (or has participated) as co-ordinator or partner in many European projects (such as Understand – an Interreg 3c operation, Egovmonet- IST-PSP thematich network, OSEPA- Interreg 4C operation). The commitment of the Regional Government in international activities is also confirmed by the participation in important international networks such as Eris@.