Policy Recommendations

Empowering Members and Shaping the Future of the Discipline

Informatics Europe contributes to shaping public policy in Informatics research and education through the development of policy reports and recommendations, such as statements, position papers and responses to public consultations. These contributions address issues aligned with the organisation's strategic goals and may target specific stakeholders or a broader audience.

To ensure IE recommendations and responses to public consultations go beyond individual views and personal bias, they are developed by IE Working Groups or designated Board Directors and reviewed by the IE Board before gaining community endorsement.

In particular, the policy recommendations activity aims at empowering members in developing their own strategies, for example, policy recommendations on research evaluation can support member departments in evidence-based discussions with peer departments, university leadership and public authorities. All outcomes are available on the Publications page — feel free to share and use them to inform impactful policy decisions.

Policy Recommendations Working Group

To develop consensus-based cross-national policies, Informatics Europe established a permanent Working Group with volunteer representatives of national Informatics associations, who are members of Informatics Europe. The Working Group consists of:

• An IE Director designated by the Board to serve as the Working Group coordinator;
• A representative of each national association that is a member of Informatics Europe, nominated by their respective association.

Topics of interest may be proposed by any of the WG members, in representation of their institutions/associations, and are reviewed and approved by the Informatics Europe Board. The Working Group aims to focus on high-impact policy contributions, typically two to three per year.

Policy documents are generally developed online using collaborative tools (e.g. shared documents), following a transparent process in which all Working Group members are invited to contribute until a consensus is reached. When a unified position cannot be achieved, we would aim at a ‘state-of-the-art’ summary of positions.

Depending on the nature of the policy recommendation, outputs may include a single document co-signed by all participating stakeholders, or shared resources that members of the Working Group can draw upon when responding to consultations (e.g. surveys or polls). In any case, all final outputs are published on the Informatics Europe website following one or more rounds of feedback from our members.

• Call to Action
• WG Members

• Here are our initiatives seeking community endorsement - sign and share among your communities!

  • "Open Citations Letter", an initiative started in January 2022, to convince all major publishers in the area of Informatics to freely share their bibliographic metadata and citation data.

  • "Rome Declaration", established in March 2019, an appeal to national and international institutions to promote Informatics education in school and for all citizens. 

• Current members:

  • Heri Ramampiaro, NTNU, Norway (Chair)
  • Roderick Bloem, Informatik Austria, Austria
  • Maike Klein, GI - Gesellschaft für Informatik, Germany
  • Eirini Ntoutsi, FTI - Fakultätentag Informatik, Germany
  • Pierre Paradinas, SIF - Société Informatique de France, France
  • Silvio Peroni, GRIN - Associazione Italiana dei Docenti Universitari di Informatica, Italy
  • Francisco José Quiles Flor, SCIE - Sociedad Científica Informática de España, Spain

  Past members:

  • Hannes Werthner, TU Wien, Austria
  • Elisabeth Schauermann, GI - Gesellschaft für Informatik, Germany
  • Heike Trautmann, FTI - Fakultätentag Informatik, Germany
  • Antonio Vallecillo, SCIE - Sociedad Científica Informática de España, Spain