19 Dec 2016

New foresight study: The future of the EU collaborative economy

What if…political power in the EU largely moved to the regions and empowered citizens worked together at local and regional level in a spirit of openness and fairness, towards a more sustainable world? This "collaborative economy" could be a place where, in 2030, relatively small digital platforms, often cooperatives or community-owned, are tools to enable everybody to participate in the economy as well as in the community. Sharing, renting and product servitisation (creating value by

By bockann | | In Publications | Read moreLeave a comment
4 Apr 2016

What future for platform mediated labour markets?

In the context of our foresight project on the “sharing economy” we carried out a second workshop on 25-26 February. Building on the relevant drivers of change identified in the 1st workshop in December 2015, a set of four future scenarios was developed to be further enriched and used as a basis for discussion. About 40 participants from "sharing economy" platforms, academia, international organisations, trade unions, agency work industry, think tanks, and Commission Services shared

By bockann | | In Lab sessions | Read moreLeave a comment
31 Mar 2016

The digital market for local services: A one-night stand for workers? An example from the on-demand economy

A study contracted by the EU Policy Lab in the context of the project A vision for the 'sharing economy' By Willem Pieter de Groen, Ilaria Maselli and Brian Fabo from the Centre for European Policy Studies Despite growing numbers of workers who use online platforms to be "matched" with people and businesses who pay for their services, there is a lack of evidence about the scale and the employment impacts of this so called "on-demand"

By Alice Szczepanikova | | In Notes and thoughts, Publications | Read moreLeave a comment
12 Jan 2016

The less visible “sharing economy”

Mareike Geiling is a co-founder of “Refugees Welcome”,an online platform that matches people who have an empty room with refugees who need a place to stay in Germany. She was rather surprised when she received an invitation to a European Commission workshop about the "sharing economy" run by the Joint Research Centre in December 2015. Despite being a prime example of platform-enabled sharing, she and her colleagues have not associated their Berlin-based initiative with the

By Alice Szczepanikova | | In Lab sessions | Read moreLeave a comment
16 Dec 2015

“A vision for the EU sharing economy” 1st Workshop

The EU Policy Lab is currently running a foresight project on the "sharing economy" to explore its possible future developments in a comprehensive, open and imaginative way. Through a qualitative and participatory approach, we will generate insights for the development of a European agenda for the "sharing" or "collaborative" economy by  the European Commission. In the context of this project, we organised the first of two workshops in Brussels on 10th December (the second one planned for 25-26

By policylab4eu | | In Lab sessions | Read moreLeave a comment
13 Oct 2015

Collaborative Economy workshop@Business Innovation Observatory

Detail from the BIO infographic Last week I attended the Workshop on the Collaborative Economy, organized by the Business Innovation Observatory of the Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW). The aim was to discuss the opportunities, policy gaps and challenges brought by the Collaborative Economy, framed by the findings of 3 case studies - Crowdsolving, Freemium and Collaborative Production. Invited panellists included practitioners and entrepreneurs from platforms and/or start-ups, experts

By susana | | In Reaching out | Read moreLeave a comment