eEurope 2005 and the European research area: policy and research measures aiming at Europe to become the world´s largest knowledge-based economy by 2010

eEurope, a political agenda aiming to bring Europe´s business, citizens and administrations online by 2005, and the European research area, a policy objective targeting the creation of a European single market for research, are two European Union policies that aim to address key challenges for Europe´s citizens and business in the new millennium. The paper shows that R&D efforts under successive European framework programmes for research, particularly in the domain of information society technologies, have underpinned these policy initiatives and that research and policy efforts together can offer a coherent approach to create the largest knowledge-based economy in the world.