Research note: Between infrastructure updates and societal needs - the missing link of digitalisation

The last decades have witnessed a sustained focus from local and regional policymakers on digitalisation and smart strategies. While these strategies have contributed to a uniformization of infrastructure and access to digital products, they have also created inequalities of their own. Recent studies indicate that, rather than reducing existing socio-economic inequalities, the digitalisation process has generated new gaps, particularly in relation to skills and outcomes. A solution that has been successfully tested, but which is still lacking proper wide deployment is represented by digital helpers, considered to be the missing link of the digitalisation process. This research note proposes a framework and a strategic matrix for policy design that connects the digital helper's role, typical tasks covered, and the level of inequality addressed, as well as a theoretical solution to reduce the misunderstandings arising from administrative variations.