method

POLICY STUDIES
Improvements in digital technologies and related convergence processes set a number of challenges to policy makers in different domains and on different policy levels. The digital society department identifies 3 interrelated core challenges on policy research requiring thorough and critical investigation as well as the development and refinement of research methods. Policy challenges are related to (i) content policies; (ii) access policies and (iii) competition policies, each driven by multilevel governance (WTO, EU, national, regional…).

Regarding content, policy clusters focus on the following questions:
- What is the impact of content policies?
- How adaptive are content (financing) policies?
- Are co- and self-regulation adequate means of realizing public policy objectives?
- Should content policies be extended to the online private environment?
- How can (online) preservation and distribution of content be enhanced?
- How do other levels of governance affect Flemish content policies?
Converging Internet, media and arts sectors also raise questions on access policies:
- How to measure digital literacy?
- How can public-private partnerships enhance digital and media literacy actions?
- How to foster universal access of next generation networks?
- How to protect privacy and stimulate trust in the new economy?
Finally, in terms of competition, main questions are:
- Can/should competition policies enhance the relationship between distributors, broadcasters and other content providers?
- Is State aid to public broadcasters market distortive?
- Are competition policies complementary with sectorspecific policies (eg. R&D and innovation)?
- How can different policy areas with diverging goals be aligned better?
- How do we measure market integration?

To tackle these questions and develop future proof ICT policy and regulatory frameworks and tools, the policy research units engage in policy assessments, encompassing impact, involvement & improvement studies. The growing complexity of modern society and the convergence of ICT markets and sectors demand for new policy approaches that can help to improve policy sustainability as well as legal quality and to prevent overregulation that would stifle economic growth and innovation. In-depth studies of the impact of digitization and convergence on the regulation of the info-communications sector (both content, access and transmission aspects), on the one hand, and the interaction between info-communications law and competition law, on the other hand, will be continuously conducted in order to test the future proof character of existing law and policies and to develop alternative regulatory models and tools.

Concretely, the policy clusters use and further develop, a multimethodic toolkit for qualitative policy evaluation (including document analysis, expert interviews, focus groups and (multi-)stakeholder analysis); quantitative statistical and flow studies; legal analysis; comparative case study analyses; foresight and future scanning (including scenario analysis, environmental scan and trend analysis); and policy recommendation, prioritization and modelling.