The Norwegian National IT Plan, 1987-1990: Whence It Came, What It Was, and How It Ended

In the late 1970s and early 1980s most of the technically advanced nations organized national R&D programs for speeding up the intake of information technologies in industry and society as a whole. In addition, Norway organized a National IT plan that ran for four years from 1987–90. The idea of having a national plan was initiated in 1982–83. This paper shortly covers events of around ten years from 1982 until 1991. There is a short description of the relevant processes and of the central actors, and of the technical and political background where the planning processes took place. There is also a short analysis of why things came about as they came, what the consequences of the plan were, and whether we could have done things differently. The main priority of most of the other national IT plans was to support their computer industries through public financing of relevant research. The Norwegian IT plan came with a wider agenda. Not only was it to be a support plan for the Norwegian IT industry, but it was to be a plan for transforming society as a whole, form the industrial to the post-industrial stage. Therefore, the Norwegian IT plan can be seen as a result of negotiations among the “narrow” industrial interests and the wider interests of the emerging information society.