What can Social Capital and ICT do for Inclusion?

This paper presents the concept of Social Capital as a potentially very useful guiding principle to inform the design and implementation of eInclusion strategies. Its purpose is therefore twofold. First, it represents a stand-alone contribution to the academic and policy-oriented debate on the relationship between social capital, ICT and social inclusion. Second, it provides direct research input to the consultative process in the development of the Communication and Action Initiative on eInclusion, focusing on the priority themes for a European eInclusion agenda as defined in the Riga Ministerial Declaration of June 2006.