How long will the pandemic last? In March 2020, four out of ten Poles expected the crisis and related restrictions to end within three months. In January 2021, every third Pole believed that the situation would last another 2-3 years, and 17% of respondents agreed with the grim statement that the pandemic would never end. However, the third and most difficult wave of infections is now behind us. The growing number of vaccinated people and the easing of restrictions have introduced the first wave of optimism and hope that the biggest crisis is behind us. However, COVID-19 still strongly shapes our everyday lives. The pandemic organizes our lives, affects our professional situation, how and with whom we spend time, and how we feel. At stake in the game are our physical and mental health, relationships with our loved ones, friends and colleagues, and financial situation. At the same time, the challenges that individual age groups have to face are diametrically different: it is impossible to compare the situation of a mother working remotely with that of a teenager studying. That is why in this report we are looking at a selected age group: people aged 25-50, the generation of parallel worlds, functioning simultaneously in the real and virtual worlds. This is a generation for whom "digital" does not always mean "more convenient" or "better". After more than an intensive year spent in front of screens, many of us feel tired. At the same time, we are open to digital when it makes it easier to meet our needs, e.g. monitoring health or physical activity.
- Authors:
- Dr. Justyna Pokojska
- Dr. Joanna Mazur
The ongoing digital transformation has redefined the rules of the game in many areas – from the paradigm of the functioning of markets, production, consumption, work and the state, to the global economy and the resulting international order. Initially, widespread robotization and automation concerned primarily the industry and services sector, and the jobs replaced by machines were related to performing simple, repetitive physical activities. Today, we see much more complex mechanisms of automation, including the implementation of robots that are able to perform increasingly precise activities that previously required human participation. This, in turn, means a revolution in the way and organization of work also in less obvious areas of the economy, such as the specialized services sector and the public sector. The effects of the ongoing processes will therefore be visible not only among the lowest-level professions, i.e. the so-called blue collars, but also in the area of work of the so-called white collars, i.e. legal services, data operations, provision of public services, medical professions and customer service. As studies show, white-collar work will increasingly be replaced by artificial intelligence systems and self-learning algorithms
- Collaborators:
- Dr. Katarzyna Niewińska
- Monika Berdys
- Satia Rożynek
- Catherine Mrugala
- Authors:
- Dr. Habil. Katarzyna Śledziewska, prof. UW
- dr hab. Renata Włoch, prof. UW
- Dr. Justyna Pokojska
The main objective of this report is to present the issues of remote learning at universities during the global pandemic. Although the situation in which remote learning has become the dominant or only form of education has been going on for several months now, there is still little available data and research results that would provide in-depth insight into the effects of such teaching. Conducting reliable analyses is time-consuming, and the dynamic nature of the changes taking place should encourage one not to draw hasty conclusions. Therefore, the issues presented below are based on a cautious approach to available information and preliminary research results. The report consists of three parts. The first is devoted to a thematic outline of remote learning during the pandemic. Challenges to e-learning are linked to examples of factors influencing its effectiveness. The second part concerns the situation of students, their experiences related to the pandemic and remote learning, and the preferences they have for it. The third part presents issues related to the perspective of instructors. The report ends with a summary, which collects comments on a broader perspective on the digital transformation of universities and the challenges it involves. The review of issues related to this topic was based on the belief that remote learning, in the current situation, is not only a set of technological solutions, but also organizational and process solutions that take into account the unique nature of the pandemic reality.
- Authors:
- Dr. Joanna Mazur
In the conditions of digital transformation, knowledge is becoming a key resource, and the key competence of people and organizations is the way and speed of its acquisition and use. In the labor market shaped by automation and platformization processes, such employees will find their place who, based on advanced cognitive, social and technical competences (including digital ones), will be able to adapt their skill profile to the rapidly changing expectations of employers. What role will universities play in acquiring competences of the future? What do students themselves say about their studies and what are their expectations? This is discussed in the DELab UW report prepared for the Polish Development Fund and Google.
- Authors:
- dr hab. Renata Włoch, prof. UW
- Dr. Habil. Katarzyna Śledziewska, prof. UW
- Satia Rożynek
- Dr. Joanna Mazur
- Lukasz Nawaro
In the report, we focus on the phenomenon of geo-blocking in cross-border trade in goods and selected services, excluding services offering access to multimedia digital content, in accordance with the activities of the European Commission. We define geo-blocking as the practice of refusing to sell or otherwise discriminating against buyers making purchases on the Internet due to their location. Analyzing the significance of geo-blocking, we seek answers to the question of what barriers hinder and limit the growth of the online transaction market. The experience of the European Union in eliminating barriers in traditional trade in goods and services proves that it facilitates cooperation, stimulates better use and allocation of resources, and consequently translates into economic growth of all participants in the exchange. E-commerce is an important step towards further strengthening trade relations within the Single European Market. However, the European Union is currently not using the potential of online transactions. Polish companies in particular rarely use this sales channel, which is why their share in cross-border e-commerce is low. However, problems with online purchases from abroad are declared by less than 5% of consumers, and as many as 70% have not had any problems
- Authors:
- Dr. Habil. Katarzyna Śledziewska, prof. UW
- Dr. Agnieszka Pugacewicz
- Dr. Kristof Gyodi
- Dr. Maciej Sobolewski
- Bartholomew Okon
- Michal Ziembinski
The Polish economy ranks one of the last in the European Union classification in terms of digitalization, lagging behind not only all the countries of the “old” EU, but even most of the new member states. The main reason for this lag behind the EU average is the low level of digitalization of small and medium-sized enterprises, which constitute the majority of business entities operating in the country. DESI and Eurostat data prove that Polish SMEs have a problem with adopting digital solutions that simplify and accelerate decision-making and management processes (EDI and ERP systems), allow for more effective business analytics (cloud computing), simplify transactions (e-commerce or e-invoices), allow for building relationships with the company's environment (CRM systems, social media) or facilitate reaching new customers and entering new markets (e-commerce, ERP). The source of problems with implementing the above solutions is the failure of Polish entrepreneurs to notice their usefulness and the deficit of digital competences, especially intermediate ones, in human capital. Meanwhile, in the context of the Digital Single Market, the level of digital technology adoption by SMEs will determine their success or failure, and consequently – the condition of the Polish economy. It is therefore worth considering what should be done to initiate and support the digital revolution in Polish SMEs.
The migration crisis that we have been dealing with in Europe since 2015 is a difficult test for European countries on several levels. From the perspective of the Western world, its scale can only be compared to the population movements after World War II. At that time, due to the war and shortly after its end, around 25 million people changed their place of residence in Europe alone. The post-war division of Europe caused successive waves of refugees. In modern history, the first confrontation with the phenomenon of mass migration was the result of the wars in the Balkans in the 90s. At that time, the European Communities began to work more intensively on creating a common asylum policy. The first series of legal acts was created in the years 2000-2005. The reform of the created regulations was completed in 2013, shortly before the beginning of the migration crisis. The effectiveness of the instruments created within the framework of the common asylum system of the European Union is therefore only now being put to the test. For this reason, the migration crisis is a challenge both for the mechanisms developed in the field of refugee law – and more broadly for the European system of human rights protection – and for the mechanisms of European integration itself. In this article, the author seeks to answer the question of how technologies change humanitarian aid in practice. The text is divided into two parts: in the first, she characterizes the entities that provide humanitarian aid. In the second, she reviews aid initiatives using technology. She tries to determine which relations within the logistics of humanitarian aid are affected by the applications and tools created. The entities whose perspective is key in this case are non-governmental organizations, informal grassroots movements and initiatives that emerged in connection with the crisis, and individual volunteers who are not formally associated with any organization. She therefore excludes the perspective of intergovernmental organizations and states. Based on a review of aid initiatives undertaken in response to its effects, she analyzes the impact of technology on activities carried out as part of the humanitarian aid and tries to answer the question of whether the scale of changes allows for the thesis of the development of an entirely new type of humanitarian aid – e-aid.
- Authors:
- Dr. Joanna Mazur
The report is a summary of research conducted by DELabUW and attempts to outline the picture of Polish student housing, as well as the tenants living there. Among other things, we show: • Why do students decide to co-rent apartments instead of living in a student residence? • Who do they think is the most eerie co-tenant? • Who would they most like to share a room or apartment with? • In what areas do conflicts most often break out in rented apartments? • How can you force an undisciplined roommate to follow the established rules? • And at what point does patience with co-tenants run out?
- Authors:
- dr hab. Renata Włoch, prof. UW
- Dr. Justyna Pokojska
Smartphones accompany us in our daily lives, constituting one of the basic devices for communication, information exchange, data acquisition and entertainment. In the face of many quantitative studies devoted to smartphones and their users, this DELab UW report presents a qualitative approach to this issue. In the project carried out in the grounded approach, it was possible to map the practices of individual smartphone users around this device. The use of individual interviews allowed us to look at the issue of mobile technologies from a more personal, even intimate perspective, to learn about people's motivations for using new technologies, to understand the behaviors, expectations and consequences of implementing smartphones in everyday practices.
- Authors:
- Dr. Natalia Juchniewicz
The popularization of digital technologies leads to changes in the structure of demand for employees – companies are starting to look for employees who can use digital tools. In 2013, the European Commission estimated that in Europe – despite the high level of unemployment, especially among young people – there is a shortage of about 900 IT specialists, and the demand for employees with advanced digital competences is growing at a rate of 100 jobs per year. What is more, it is increasingly difficult to indicate professions in which digital competences are unnecessary. The natural recruitment requirement is computer operation, orientation in social media and knowledge of Internet applications and functions. Potential employees may not have such skills, however, and then the problem of a mismatch between employee competences and employer demand arises. We propose to call this specific type of technological unemployment digital unemployment.
- Authors:
- dr hab. Renata Włoch, prof. UW
- Anna Majos
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