| NOTAS: | This publication is a Conference and Workshop report by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission’s science and knowledge service.
"In 2018, the JRC launched the research project ‘Exploring Digital Government Transformation in the EU: understanding public sector innovation in a data-driven society’, referred to in brief as DigiGov. The key objective of the project was to explore how innovation in the public sector, enabled by information and communication technologies (ICTs), can transform governance systems, enabling governments to better address systemic problems. The research was designed to consider governmental transformation in relation to emerging predictive and cognitive technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), in combination with applications providing geospatial/location data, for policy design and service delivery. The research aimed to support the implementation of JRC research in the area of digital government, as part of its flagship project on Digital Transformation and Artificial Intelligence (DT&AI), and within the framework of the ELISE Action of the ISA2 Programme, jointly led by the JRC and DIGIT. The DigiGov research was directed by the JRC and implemented by a consortium consisting of PPMI, Open Evidence, Politecnico di Milano, Rand Europe and Martel Innovate. The team analysed the state of the art, developed a conceptual framework and carried out four case studies, which included empirical experiments. The study included an extensive consultation and validation process which drew on three workshops as well as online community engagement activities. The participants included experts, academics, practitioners and representatives of NGOs, as well as policy makers from governments, EU institutions and international organisations. In total, almost 100 experts and stakeholder representatives, as well as EC colleagues, engaged in study-related events and activities. They carried out peer reviews, contributed to discussions and provided feedback that informed the research process. More specifically, three events were organised as a core part of the DigiGov research, to discuss the key findings of the study and gain insights for further work and policy implications: - The first workshop was held at JRC Ispra, Italy on 13-14 May 2019. It focused on discussing the review of the state of the art and the first draft of the conceptual framework for the study. - The second event consisted of a Policy Lab, and took place at JRC Seville on 24-25 October 2019. It focused on co-designing the revised version of the conceptual framework, and validating the findings of the four experimental case studies. - The final workshop took place on 9 July 2020. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and related travel restrictions, the event was organised online. The workshop discussed avenues for shaping Digital Government Transformation in the EU, and included a foresight discussion to imagine the future of digitally enabled governments. Over the forthcoming sections, we present the key insights that emerged from the workshops. In the final section, we bring together the most prominent ideas, including some of those that originated from the debate on the role of the EU in the light of different digital transformation scenarios." |
