A Roadmap for Research in Electronic Governance:

The Grand Challenges ahead

Yannis CharalabidisAssistant Professor, University of the AegeanManager, Greek Interoperability Centre

Your keynote speaker

Software engineer, National Technical University of Athens

PhD in complex information systems, NTUA

7 years a researcher in RTD projects for businesses and governments

7 years in the software industry (Greece, Netherlands, Germany Poland). Managing director of Baan-Singular ERP company

Already 4 years in Uni Aegean, teaching and researching on eGovernance (another 3 “remaining”)

The next 7 years ?

My aim for the day: to give you food for thought.

Hold on …

Rising number of tipping points, unpredictable “black swan” events: (financial and economic crisis; terrorist attacks, climate change)

Can’t be adequately addressed by traditional econometric models

Politicians are not used to evidence-based decisions

Explosion in authorship, co-creation and collaboration

Mass collaboration and participationOpen data, open innovation modelsGovernment 2.0More intelligence and more stupidity, more signal and more noise

The problem: policy-making and governance in a

complex world

Society: increasingly interconnected, flexible, fast-evolving, unpredictable

Governance: often silos-based, linear, obscure, hierarchical, over-simplified

Policies, Disciplines and Actors are isolated

The Problem: Gap between Society and Governance

Policies Health R&D Social

Disciplines Economics Mathematics ICT

Actors Government Citizens Industry

Web Technologies

Social Informatics

Systems & Services Technologies

Management Tools

The problem: We need a mix of ICT with Social Sciences

Web 2.0Argument Visualization

Mixed Reality Pattern Recognition

Serious Games

Electronic ParticipationTranslation Systems

Social Networks

Behavioral ModellingSocietal ModellingSocial Simulation

Public Sector Service Systems Workflow Systems

Enterprise Resource ManagementCloud computing

PS Knowledge ManagementLegal Structures Management

Business IntelligenceData & Opinion Mining

SimulationForecasting - Backcasting

OptimizationSystems Dynamics

Adaptive Models

“Hard”

“Soft”

Society Administration

"The problems that we have created cannot be solved at the level of thinking

that created them"

Albert Einstein

So ?

A roadmap for ICT-enabled governance research, beyond 2010, to address global challenges:

• What are the new needed research directions ?

• How should we team-up among governments, industry and citizens ?

• When should we expect results ?

www.crossroad-eu.net

2020: A Paradigm Shift in Policy-making, using three "powers"

More people involved (collaborative governance)

More accurate and analytical, modeling and simulation tools

More data available (the data deluge)

2020

2010

The Method

State of the art: research

push

Future scenarios:

demand pullGaps

Grand challenges (draft)

Research challenge

s

Research challenge

s

Research roadmap

(final)

The eGovernance State of the Art in 2010

Low Openness & Transparency : extreme 0

High Openness & Transparency: extreme 1

extreme 1

Low Integration of Policy Intelligence

extreme 0

Self-Service Governance

Open Governance

Privatised Governance

Leviathan Governance

High Integration of Policy Intelligence

Four Scenarios for our Society

WHAT – the Grand Challenges

GC1: Model-based collaborative governance

Today’s policy modeling:

Human effort based

Using mainly econometric models and overlooking human behaviour

Social simulation and agent-based models are marginal, black-box, fragmented and single-purpose

Progress in modeling software has not matched advances in computing power.

Designing, reviewing and updating formal models from qualitative and quantitative data is costly.

Research challenges

Integrated, composable and reusable modelsmodels composability and interoperability (between software and modelling methods) to build on existing modelsShort term research: definition of procedures for model composition and repositories Long term research: model interoperability and SOA / GRID

Collaborative modellingIntuitive model building and simulation tools to allow all stakeholders to take part in transparent formal modelling at large scaleShort term: transparent and intuitive modelling interfacesLong-term: mass-collaboration modelling framework

Easy access to information and knowledge creation methods of information elicitation that, during the overall model building and use processes, will help decision makers to learn how a certain system works and ultimately gain insights (knowledge) and understanding (apply the extracted knowledge from those processes) in order to successfully implement a desired policy.Short-term: interoperability of data sources, information elicitationLong-term: user-behavior information generation; mass-interactive learning environments

Research challenges/2Model validation

Reliability of models plays a crucial role in policy modeling and simulation. A policy model should be developed for a specific purpose (or context) and its validity is to be determined with respect to that purpose (or context). Therefore, specific and integrated techniques and ICT tools are required to be developed for policy modeling, (conceptual and software validation )Short-term: Consolidation of validation techniquesLong-term: complex and large scale model validation; artificial intelligence incorporated in validation systems

Interactive simulation It allows a researcher to interactively control simulations and perform data analysis while avoiding many of the pitfalls associated with the traditional batch/post processing cycle. Short-term: UsabilityLong-term: Input/output system integration, Computational steering

Output analysis and knowledge synthesis the analysis and integration of feedbacks in modelling and simulation process Short-term: Policy model simulation, ranking techniquesLong-term: sophisticated variance estimators, automated output analysis

GC2: Data-powered collective intelligence and action

Layer Research Challenge

Collaboration and Action User-generated simulation and gaming for public actionNew institutional design for collaborative governance

Analysis and representation

Collaborative visual analytics for policy-making Peer-to-peer public opinion mining

Data collection and validation

Federated dynamic identity management Real-time, high-quality, reusable open government data Privacy compliant participatory sensing for real-time policy design and evaluation

The “enlightened” citizen The “everyday” citizen

Conversation Today 2020

Action2020 2020

Research challenges

Privacy-compliant participatory sensing for real-time policy-making

Dramatically increasing the data availability for policy evaluation while maintaining privacy and ensuring policy inferenceShort term: combination of sensing with social network analysis, data quality verification, context verification; Long term: privacy by design; enhanced analytical techniques to respond to subtle events; data collaboration protocols

Real-time, high-quality, reusable open government data Simplifying and lowering costs of real-time open data publication, ensuring data quality and advanced privacy monitoringShort-term: data vocabularies; data curating tools; easy linked data publicationLong-term: on the fly data quality agreements, web of data, real-time validation and publication

Research challenges/2

Federated dynamic identity management and privacy controlNecessary to ensure trustful collaboration, federated across country, with multiple levels of security for different services, relying on authentic sources, usable in private sector context. Short-term: Dynamic user-controlled data disclosure; culturally-dependent identity systems; trust negotiationLong-term: context dependent identity management

Peer-to-peer public opinion miningThe limits of human attention, combined to the existing simple interfaces available for browsing discussion and comments, often leads to low levels of engagement and flaming wars, driving to polarisation of arguments and enhanced risks of conflicts. Short-term research: computer-generated cross-language policy corpora; algorithms for policy statistical analysis; comment recommendation algorithmsLong-term research: integration with social network analysis; audiovisual mining; peer-to-peer usable opinion mining tools;

Research challenges/3Intuitive, collaborative visual analytics of data for policy-making

Visual analytics is particularly effective when dealing with complex and non-predictable patterns, such as those related to assessing and anticipating public policy impact, but is not formalised in the policy contextShort-term research: Collaborative platform display; Interaction between visualization and models; Visualization infrastructures for policy modelling issues Long-term research: Bias identification; learning adaptive algorithm for users’ intent; intuitive affordable interfaces for citizens

User-generated simulation and gaming tools for public actionSimulation and serious gaming impact on personal incentives to action and showing long-term and systemic effects of individual choices, but lack open scenarios based on personal and policy decision as well as usabilityShort-term: kit-based citizens-controlled simulation and gaming; integration with policy modelsLong-term: augmented reality in policy gaming and simulation

New institutional design of collaborative governance

GC3 – Government Service UtilityRationalePresent:

Traditional public services have not delivered on their promise for time, quality, cost, or overall return on investment

Citizens rarely have access to personalised services in the way they want Service design cannot tap into citizen or SME’s productivity. Services

practically remain the same as new service creation is hindered

Future:Services are converging and moving from the physical into the digital world,

universally accessible on any device from all social groupsGovernment clouds are overcoming interoperability, privacy and security

challenges and provide the base for high automation in public sectorsFuture Internet appears as a key enabler for new public service systems,

drastically altering productivity, speed, cost and overall quality

The 1-1-1 Concept:every service can be provided in one stop, one second, with one euro cost

Why a Service Utility ?

Ubiquitous nature: electricity is available everywhere, if you have a proper line and device to connect

Usability: it is simple to connect to electricity network, provided you have an electric device with a standard plug (different from country to country, sometimes)

Federation: you don’t really know where / how energy is created within a complex network that cross borders, sectors

Co-generation: you can be a customer and a provider, at the same time

De-regulation: although Governments set the regulations and may own some utilities, the market is competitive

Multi-channel service provision

Simplicity, interoperability, inclusion

Public Clouds

Service co-creation

Service supply deregulation

See also “6 common characteristics of service utilities (Rappa, 2004)”: Necessity, Reliability, Usability, Utilisation, Scalability and Exclusivity.

Electricity Provision Service Provision

GSU

The GSU Model

Core Services• Identification • Security • Communication• Storage• Execution• Open Data

Registry Services• Citizen Registry• Health Registry• Financial Registry• Cadastre • Social Security• Education• Professional Chamber

Complex Services• Taxation • Health• Education • Social Security• Benefits / subsidies• Representation / Participation

Information Services• Open data• Semantic services• Knowledge management

ServiceAggregation

ServiceProvision

Enterprises, SME’s, VSE’s• Finance• Growth • Work and Social Security• Representation • Information

Citizens• Citizenship• Health • Education• Work and Social Security• Representation / Participation• Finance• Information

Other / Cross Country GSU’s• PanEuropean Core Services• PanEuropean Registry Services• Cross-country services• Highly automated cross-GSU Services • Private Service Utilities

Administrations• CoreServices • Registry Services• Public Sector (web) Services• Planning• Monitoring• Open Data

Service Creation

Service Consumption

GC3 Research challengesUser-driven innovation shaping Public Services

Service co-design, co-generation, mashing and deployment

Citizen generated ideas for new services

Change the “DNA” of Public ServicesCloud – based service provision, high automation, interoperability

Multichannel provision, internet of things

Services in one second, one stop, at one euro cost

Digital public services value proposition for allReshape digital public services objectives, scope and means

Create a value proposition model for all stakeholders

Massive Public Information as a ServiceUtilisation of public information and knowledge

The Governance Cycle and the Management Cycle

• LEAD• CONTROL

• ORGANISE• PLAN

Policy Definition

Modelling, Simulation,

Pre -Assessment

Service Provision,

Policy Implementa

tion

Open Data,

Post-assessment

GC 3

GC 1

GC 2

State

Citizens

Citizens

GC4 – Science Base for ICT-enabled GovernanceRationalePresent:

Although a lot of solutions are being developed and applied, there is a lack of systematisation of the domain, hindering re-use of practices, gradual refinement and evolution

Relations with neighboring domains are not explored, resulting in unnecessary duplications or lack of cooperation

Future: ICT-enabled governance is maturing into a well-established discipline,

integrating social sciences, management, operational research and ICT Classification of research approaches, applications, problems and solution

paths supports gradual evolution The research community is constantly updating the objectives and

challenges of the domain, utilising new ICT developments for the good of the society

Multi-disciplinary issues and relations with neighbouring domains

Metrics and assessment models, Decision Support, Modelling & Simulation Tools (supporting problem-solution relation, utilising BPM/BPR tools, vertical approaches)

Formal methods and tools for categorising and analysing the concepts, the problems and solution paths in ICT-enabled governance

GC4: Research Challenges

A collaborative journey…

3 large experts’ workshops: Samos restricted workshop in July 2010 (over 100 participants)Roadmap Validation workshop in conjunction with the IFIP EGOV Conference 2010, on August 30th, 2010 (over 50 participants) Networking Session (Large Expert Workshop) in conjunction with the ICT 2010 Conference in Brussels on September 27th, 2010 (over 100 participants)

Online deliberation at http://crossroad.uservoice.com (over 500 votes)Validation by the Experts Scientific Committee of the full draft of the initial roadmapOngoing discussion on LinkedIn group

Average distribution: 30% industry, 10% public administration, 60% researchers

My eGovernance Research Hype Curve

Service Delivery Platforms

Mobile Government

Opinion Mining

Instant, proactive Service Delivery for all

eVoting

Argument Visualisation

Federated eID

Gov Cloud (SaaS)

Science Basefor ICT-enabled Governance

Gov Cloud (PaaS)

Social Media in Policy Making

Semantic Interoperability

Societal Simulation

eParticipation

Model-Based Decision Making

Time

Visibility

Inflated Expectations Disillusionment Productivity

Linked Data

Visual Analytics

Legal Informatics

Service Co-creation

Open data

ICT-enabled historiography

Gov Cloud (IaaS)

Technical Interoperability

Organisational Interoperability

Web Services

Back to reality: Our current projects on ICT-enabled Governance

PADGETS: Policy Making through Social Media Interoperability www.padgets.eu

ENGAGE: Open, Linked Governmental Data for scientists and citizens www.engage-project.eu

NOMAD: Non-moderated opinion mining (the opinion web) – starting October 2011

CROSSOVER: A global think-tank on ICT-enabled Governance– starting October 2011

As a conclusion

We need a totally different set of tools for evidence-based decision making by governments

Societal Simulation, Data and Opinion Mining, Service Co-creation will be the next “big things” for governments that wish to make a difference

We need to go beyond pure ICT approaches and embark in a multi-disciplinary journey. That’s why we need a science base for ICT-enabled Governance

But most importantly …

Stay tuned at:

yannisx@aegean.gr

@yannisc

t-government.blogspot.com

eGovernance Research is about our children’s future:

It is not enough to “do things right” …

we should “do the right things”