Research |
For more than twenty five years, European Research into Consumer Affairs (ERICA) has been a resource to voluntary organisations across Europe and has provided research for them as well as for the EU Commission.
The areas covered by ERICA's results oriented research during this period include:
Access to the Internet and digital
TV for the disadvantaged
Action programme for the citizens of Europe
Commission grant-giving procedures
Environmental labelling
Fairtrade labelling
Modern farming methods and food safety
Plain language
Protecting children when they use the Internet
Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue
Transport for people with physical disabilities
Violence in the media
Access
to the Internet and digital TV for the disadvantaged
As part of the project Preventing The 'Digital Television and Technology Divide' led by the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP) and co-funded by the Information Society Directorate-General of the EU Commission, ERICA led active networking with organisations representing the disadvantaged. This sub-project aimed to educate social ngos on the extent of the gap in access to technology and research means to close it.
Digital TV will add to the opportunity to communicate and gain information
via the Internet for those who can afford it. Research indicates that youngsters
brought up to be familiar with the new technology can earn 10-15% more. ERICA
co-operated with the other project partners to ensure that all the main categories
of the disadvantaged were included in consultations and in the virtual debate
on the analogue switch off and internet availability.
You can download the full report Preventing the Digital Television and Technology
Divide here in either MSWord or PDF
format.
Action programme for the citizens of Europe
In collaboration with other European organisations, ERICA proposed an Action Programme for the Citizens of Europe. The proposal was designed to complement the Social Charter which is primarily concerned with workers. It deals with the problems of the environment, of parents caring for families, the old, the young and other European citizens who are not part of the workforce. For the most recent report written in July 2006 by ERICA's Chair, Dr John Godfrey, please click here.
Commission grant-giving procedures
An ERICA-designed research project, funded by the National Lottery Charities Board in October 1997, aimed to address the problems which voluntary organisations had when applying for EU Commission funding. ERICA collected information from voluntary organisations in all four countries of the United Kingdom, by means of a specially designed questionnaire. The organisations were asked to record their experiences of any EU funding either from the Structural Funds or directly from the various Directorates-General (DGs) of the EU Commission. ERICA also collected application forms from a number of DGs and from the European Social Fund (ESF). These were compared to the National Lottery Charities Board and European Cultural Foundation application procedures, which both proved much easier to cope with than any of the European Commission's. From all the information collected, analysed and collated, ERICA produced the report, Filling in Forms: could Europe make applying for grants easier for voluntary organisations?
The report provided 24 recommendations for improvements to all aspects of EU funding procedures and was presented to the EU Commission where it influenced some of its decisions on funding applications. The report can be downloaded in PDF format here.
Working within a larger Consumers International' project, ERICA led co-operation between the different national consumer organisations to determine the best form of environmental labelling and how trade disputes in this area can be avoided. Co-funding was provided by the EU Commission's Directorate for Health and Consumer Protection and research provided by the London School of Economics (LSE). ERICA followed up its proposals in the TACD and the US gave an assurance not, after all, to challenge the EU eco-label in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). ERICA's director, Ann Davison, co-founded the Fairtrade Foundation (UK).
More recently, ERICA was a partner in a project co-financed by EU Commission DG SanCo researching environmental and energy labelling on electrical household appliances. More ....
ERICA produced proposals for the extension of voluntary fairtrade labelling, which offers consumers a guarantee that particular products sourced from developing countries involve decent wages and conditions for third world workers. Such schemes have the advantage of raising standards without fuelling protectionism. Both the EU and the US governments agreed to give the labelling schemes encouragement.
ERICA worked with Consumers Choice Council, US, to share expertise between the EU and US consumer movements, third world charities and representatives of third world workers in this area.
Consumers increasingly say that they wish to take the country of origin into account for political, ethical, or other reasons, for example, by refusing to buy from countries with poor records on human rights, the environment or animal welfare. In the Netherlands, UK and Germany, for example, there have been some voluntary initiatives. Organisations sell goods with a 'Fairtrade' mark to inform the public as to the origins of the product and the relevant labour practices. ERICA has encouraged these schemes and commented on ways to ensure consumer confidence.
Modern farming methods and food safety
ERICA is a leading research resource on agricultural methods and food safety for the European consumer movement. It manages the project Foodaware which was set up in 2001 to coordinate the broad UK consumer movement’s work on food safety, nutrition and standards. This project is ongoing and Foodaware has its own website at www.foodaware.org.uk.
ERICA also was a partner in a Consumers
International led project which researched the reform of Common Agricultural
Policy. in 2003. More >
Prior to this and in the wake of the BSE crisis, ERICA provided the research
into agricultural production methods such as the use of antibiotics as growth
promoters in livestock production, genetically modified food and the problems
of agrochemicals for the National Consumer Council report "Farm policies
and our food" published in March 1998. A major concern was the potential
impact on human health of bacterial resistance to antibiotics and of residues
in food and water. The EU has since banned a number of antibiotics as
growth promoters. In 1997 ERICA researched BSE for the UK consumer movement.
The EU has since overhauled its whole system of food safety legislation and official controls, with comprehensive new laws which were effective from 1 January 2006.
ERICA co-operated with "Consumers in Europe Group" in a campaign to promote the use of more comprehensible language in community documents. ERICA believes that PLAIN LANGUAGE is important in removing much of the misunderstanding which as present exists between those who manage the Union and those whom it exists to serve.
ERICA is concerned that information given to consumers on labels, and in product safety instructions, is not always clear and comprehensible. Indeed, an unintended consequence of the EU Product Liability Directive seems to have been that many manufacturers issue extremely detailed safety instructions, covering every foreseeable use and misuse, so that they can reduce their liability in the event of product-related injury by saying "we warned you". Such instructions are often over-long, repetitive and a disincentive to users to read them.
Obscure and ambiguous language in green papers and draft legislation is a barrier to proper consultation, scrutiny and decision-making in consumer and food policies.
As part of the overall drive to make the EU more relevant to its people, the
Commission should report on action taken and progress made since the 1993 Council
Resolution (8 June 1993) on the quality of drafting Community legislation, and
make recommendations. The Council Resolution stressed the need for clear, simple,
concise and unambiguous texts without Community jargon.
ERICA also led an EU commission co-funded project Reaching less literate
consumers with Internet education to reach disadvantaged consumers with
Internet education and to empower them so that they do not miss out on the opportunities
for goods and services provided via the net. Material was developed for Shopping
on the Internet, Eating well and keeping warm for this project.
More ...
Protecting children when they use the Internet
During the period July 1999 to March 2004, ERICA was a partner in a number of projects to research the best ways of protecting children when they use the Internet. Guidelines for children to surf safely were produced in all the official languages of the EU. For more information about some of the individual projects, please click on the links below:
Consumers for Internet Safety Awareness (CISA)
Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD)
Forging people-to-people links was an important element of the EU-US Summit held on 18th May 1998 in London. ERICA played an active part in the people-to-people links under chapter four of the New Transatlantic Agenda and also helped to strengthen EU-US consumer links and to raise the profile of poverty and social inclusion issues within the civil society dialogue.
ERICA played a key role in setting up the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) in 1998. The existence of TACD ensures that consumer organisations have a say on EU-US trade issues like genetically modified food. ERICA chaired the TACD's Trade Group for two years and helped the TACD to ease access to AIDS medicines, protect EU ethical labelling (eco, gmos and fair trade) and improve consumer impact on the trade process in general. Submissions by ERICA have covered the WTO, fairtrade labelling, business codes, e-commerce and children and Internet.
ERICA conducted an online survey on spam emails in 2003 in the, then, eleven official languages of the EU for the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD). The results can be found from the following links to the TACD website: TACD resolution on spam and survey report and results
Transport for people with physical disabilities
ERICA, financed by the Commission of the European Community, investigated Dial-a-ride and similar systems in seven European countries and the United States, followed by a publication - "How to start a Dial-a-ride" in 1989.
The Dial-a-ride project was followed by one investigating the larger question of how public transport can be made much more accessible to people with disabilities, including those in wheelchairs. Countries throughout the Community were covered.
ERICA’s proposals to the Commission for a Travel Card for people with disabilities and for a Code of Conduct on their behalf, have contributed to the formulation, by the Commission, of a draft directive.
ERICA co-operated with the Center for Media Education, the Oxford University Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy and the Portuguese Consumer Association (DECO) in an effort to raise the standards of international broadcasting aimed at children. The hope especially was to reduce the diet of violence.
In 2000, at a conference organised by ERICA in Lisbon, Dr Diane Levin, an internationally recognised expert in the harmful effects of violence, media and commercial culture on children, gave a presentation Children and Media Violence. More ...