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Presentation of the results of Project Internet Catalonia, PIC
[25/06/2007]
PIC is a research programme carried out from September 2001 to July 2007 by the IN3, the UOC's research institute. It is a basic research programme, defined by the researchers and co-led by Manuel Castells and Imma Tubella. It is made up of 7 research projects, all of which focus on Catalonia, but based on international research findings in each field.

PIC has studied the changes in Catalan society brought on by the use of the internet, in all areas of social life, business and administration. It has also studied society as a whole, the economy and the institutions in order to establish the relationship between technology and society. The projects are as follows:


  • on Catalan society, based on a face-to-face survey of a representative sample of the Catalan population (3,005 people);

  • on companies, based on a face-to-face survey of 2,038 companies, a representative sample of businesses in Catalonia;

  • on primary and secondary schools, based on a survey of 9,876 teachers, administrators and students from a sample of 350 schools, a representative sample of all the schools in Catalonia;

  • on the health system, based on face-to-face and internet surveys of all the personnel at the Catalan Health Institute, Barcelona's Hospital Clínic and on the pilot tests of the Shared Medical History throughout Catalonia, of members of Barcelona's Guild of Doctors, of members of the Guild of Nurses, of members of the Guild of Pharmacists, of health associations and health websites in Catalonia;

  • on universities, based on internet surveys of students and teaching staff at all of Catalonia's public universities and at the UOC;

  • on technological change in the Generalitat of Catalonia (the Catalan government) and Barcelona City Council;

  • and on the relationship between internet and the communication media.

The project has been funded in its entirety by various Catalan government departments, and coordinated by the President's Office and the Department of Universities. PIC was initially supported by President Pujol. Subsequently, President Maragall and President Montilla continued to support it and increased its funding. PIC has involved some forty researchers, and each team has had a project director. A total of 15,390 face-to-face and 40,400 virtual interviews have been carried out. PIC, at least in quantitative terms, is the largest social sciences research project ever carried out in Catalonia, the most important research project into the information society carried out to date in Spain, and one of the most important in Europe. The results are to be made public and available to everyone. They are to be published on the IN3's website (several thousand pages and several thousand statistical tables) between October 2007 and January 2008. 7 volumes summarising and analysing the fundamental parts of each project are also to be published. The 7 volumes will be published in both Spanish and Catalan by Ariel between October 2007 and May 2008.

Information Society