Publication 14 June 2024
2023 Activity Report
Review of 2023 Activities
At its Annual General Meeting on Thursday, 30 May 2024, Renaissance Numérique unveiled its 2023 Activity Report, reviewing the think tank’s key accomplishments throughout the year. The report highlighted Renaissance Numérique’s efforts to:
- Anticipate the future of digital policy through its Via Digitalis 2032 report.
- Decipher emerging trends, such as its in-depth analysis of Metavers and Internet governance.
- Alert on potential threats to fundamental rights and freedoms, taking a strong stance on critical issues.
- Foster dialogue through its diverse range of regular activities, including the ASDN cycle, “OFF-The-Record” Meetings, standing committees, and more.
Editorial of the Activity Report
The year 2023 has been a transition period for the subject that our think tank focuses on: the appropriation of digital transformation by society. This transition is clearly political: we were in the first year of a new national mandate, with its emerging policies, and also in the last year of a European mandate, marked by powerful acts that reflect the path opened up on our continent.
This crossing of paths offered many opportunities for discussion, taking stands, and projects. Anticipating European regulations, the desire to take national initiatives, the willingness to start or renew old debates, and to revive societal issues marked this year for us. We had to alert more than expected about regulatory excesses from both the legislative and executive branches when they acted independently, disregarding appropriate assessments and failing to consider the expertise that society expected to provide. This was particularly true in the case of algorithmic video surveillance, for which Renaissance Numérique has often advocated in favour of regulatory sandboxes. We did not expect such poorly supervised and poorly designed experiments to be carried out on such a large scale with such vigour.
Nor could we foresee the the flurry of legislative activity related to children’s relationship with technology. Our working group on online rights for minors, which released a report in 2022, engaged in a fruitful dialogue with lawmakers and the administration throughout 2023. It formulates one wish: for the legislative creativity to be more concerned with the application of existing regulation, and ensuring that they are effective. The subject deserves it.
The year 2023 was also marked by a methodological innovation with a new project: the Metaverse Dialogues. During three days of open discussions, off the record, we enabled the expression of strong viewpoints and devoted time to carefully examine complex issues with a forward-looking perspective. The report which emerged from these exchanges and supporting research will be a landmark: it raises essential questions and charts the course for a substantive Metaverse debate beyond the hype phase.
Anticipation is something we practiced in 2022 through the forward-looking work of Via Digitalis 2032, investigating the transformations facing our society in the current decade. Proposals inviting the creation of new coalitions have been presented in a successful dialogue at the French Senate.
Our proposed dialogue demonstrates openness, celebrates differing viewpoints, and encourages true cooperativity. It aspires to introduce novelty, liberated from external control and committed to transparency.
Representing our distinct identity, this dialogue permeates our numerous activities and takes different forms:
- patient and constructive, open to the general public through our series of ASDN meetings;
- honest and direct, under confidentiality, during our “OFF-The-Record” Meetings with players in digital regulation, innovators or entrepreneurs;
- progressive, inclulsive, diversified and rigorous, facilitated by the recent establishment of four continuous commissions.
Finally, 2023 was also the year in which our society took the measure of the artificial intelligence revolution. We began our reflections on the subject in partnership with Confrontations Europe, and then set to work on a fundamental issue that will bear fruit in 2024.
Our accomplishments thrive exclusively on one ingredient: our members, their talent, their involvement, their expertise, their character and their diversity. Thank you for being involved, critical, demanding, suggestive, expert, sometimes disagreeing, but always listening and welcoming. The quality of the debate on our digital challenges needs the energy created here. Let’s try to swell our ranks embodying these virtues!
Nicolas Vanbremeersch
President of Renaissance Numérique
