INOV.EGOV PROJECT
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ITEM DESCRIPTION Designação do projeto
(project name)INOV.EGOV – Digital Governance Innovation for Inclusive, Resilient and Sustainable Societies Código do projeto
(project code)NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000087 Objetivo principal
(main goal)The INOV.EGOV project – on digital governance innovation for inclusive, resilient, and sustainable societies – aims at consolidating in the North Region of Portugal a research and innovation pole in Digital Governance focused on the analysis, design, construction, and monitoring of structures, processes, and dynamics for smart, inclusive, resilient, secure, and integrated digital governance, at all the State and Public Administration levels. It will do so through an Operating Unit of the United Nations University, UNU-EGOV, hosted in Guimarães by the Portuguese Republic since 2014 and already recognised as an internationally renowned think-tank in this area with direct intervention in more than 30 countries. Região de intervenção
(region of action)NORTE Entidade beneficiária
(beneficiary entity)902053663 – UNIDADE OPERACIONAL DE GOVERNAÇÃO ELETRÓNICA ORIENTADA PARA POLÍTICAS DA UNIVERSIDADE DAS NAÇÕES UNIDAS (UNU-EGOV) Data de aprovação
(approval date)07 April 2022 Data de início
(start date)01 July 2019 Data de conclusão
(end date)30 June 2023 Custo total elegível
(total eligible cost)4,564,116.43 EUR Apoio financeiro da União Europeia
(financial support from the European Union)FEDER – 3,879,498.97 EUR Apoio financeiro público regional
(financial support from regional public funds)n/a Description of the project
The project focus will be placed on the following three areas:
- In the digital transition at the global, national, and local levels of governance;
- In the innovative technological solutions based on frontier, often disruptive, digital technologies, namely Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, for the construction, execution, monitoring, and evaluation of evidence-based and citizen-centred public policies at national, regional, and local scales;
- In effective ways of designing, planning, and monitoring the ecosystem of digital governance, at local and global strategic levels, for an effective/inclusive response to the specific needs and dynamics of people’s and communities’ lives while empowering democratic citizenship.
The project articulates, in a dynamic way, three basic dimensions:
- Fundamental and applied research in digital governance and the digital transformation of the State and Public Administration;
- Systematic translation of research findings into the design, analysis and evaluation of public policies;
- Institutional capacity building and networking reaching the relevant actors in both the public sector, administration, academy, and industry.
Through this synergetic approach, the project will give a decisive contribution for an internationally renowned research laboratory and think-tank on policy-driven electronic governance, becoming a source of authoritative EGOV research, policy advice, and education, and an effective bridge between EGOV research and policy located in the North Region of Portugal.
The INOV.EGOV project is structured in three main Research Lines (RL) articulating the three dimensions mentioned above. These are connected to a fourth line, orthogonal to the others, devoted to institutional capacity building and networking at an international level, whose significant impact is anticipated.
The project activities for each RL are detailed via the tabs at the top of this page.
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Research Line 1 – Digital governance strategies in a complex world
The expected scientific outcomes of this RL are as follows:
RL1.R1 – New results on the conceptualisation, design, measurement and monitoring of digital governance and digital transformation of State institutions and Public Administration, at multiple levels, to face complex, uncertain times and contribute to structure effective strategies for sustainable development.
RL1.R2 – New results on the methodology of EGOV national, regional, and local strategies design, and their validation through international case studies.
RL1.R3 – New results and evidence on harnessing digital governance approaches to address emergency situations and crisis contexts.
RL1.R4 – Collaborative dynamics with EGOV active agents and institutions in different countries to support and validate research findings, as well as to foster the local implementation of pilot projects in the domain covered by this RL.
Therefore, the deliverables associated to the scientific outcomes of this RL will be:
- Research papers in indexed journals and top international conferences (12);
- Policy recommendations, in the form of guidelines for policy-makers and government officials for the successful transfer, localisation, and adoption of EGOV innovations within the domain of the RL (8);
- Workshops / seminars with international scope on the topics covered by the three Action Lines on the corresponding project results and challenges (3);
- Open-source knowledge repository documenting EGOV innovations to address emergency and crisis contexts;
- Participation in the design of at least 3 digital governance strategies at national, local, or sectoral levels in different developing countries;
- PhD thesis projects to be initiated within the project (4);
- Scientific employment: new positions for researchers with PhD (4) and research assistants (3).
Results
- Publications related to this Research Line are available on the UNU Collections repository.
- Events related to this Research Line are available on the UNU-EGOV institutional website.
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Research Line 2 – Harnessing frontier technologies for smart governance
The expected scientific outcomes of this RL are as follows:
RL2.R1 – New results on the impact and innovative exploitation of frontier technologies, namely AI, blockchain and data science in the EGOV domain.
RL2.R2 – New results and policy recommendations on harnessing frontier technologies for sectoral and local EGOV their validation through international case studies.
RL2.R3 – Launching of an open knowledge repository documenting case studies and pilot projects on the role of open data and data science technologies for digital governance.
The deliverables associated to the scientific outcomes of this RL will be:
- Research papers in indexed journals and top international conferences (10);
- Policy recommendations in the form of guidelines for policy-makers and government officials for the exploitation of frontier technologies, namely AI, blockchain, data science, and spatial information in the EGOV domain (6);
- Public initiative, articulated with the Portugal North Region municipalities, on harnessing frontier technologies for local EGOV;
- Workshops / seminars / conferences with international scope on the topics covered by this RL, including dissemination of project results and challenges (2);
- Open knowledge repository documenting case studies and pilot projects on the role of open data and data science technologies in the digital transformation of State institutions and Public Administration;
- PhD thesis projects to be initiated within the project (3);
- Scientific employment: new positions for researchers with PhD (3) and research assistants (3).
Results
- Publications related to this Research Line are available on the UNU Collections repository.
- Events related to this Research Line are available on the UNU-EGOV institutional website.
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Research Line 3 – Citizen and community centred digital governance
The expected scientific outcomes of this RL are as follows:
RL3.R1 – New results on models, mechanisms and policies for citizen participation, local democracy, collaborative governance, distributed decision-making, and smart citizenship at different levels of State and Public Administration.
RL3.R2 – New results on ensuring citizen- and community-centred EGOV processes in the design and planning of smart cities and communities and their validation through international case studies.
RL3.R3 – Policy recommendations for the design, analysis, implementation, assessment and monitoring of citizen- and community-centred approaches to EGOV.
RL3.R4 – Several collaborative dynamics with EGOV active agents and institutions in different countries to support and validate research findings, as well as to foster the local implementation of citizen- and community-centred approaches through pilot projects.
The deliverables associated to the scientific outcomes of this RL will be:
- Research papers in indexed journals and top international conferences (10);
- Policy recommendations in the form of guidelines for policy-makers and government officials on citizen- and community-centred approaches to EGOV, namely on governance aspects of sustainable smart cities (6);
- Conceptual framework on privacy and digital identity for low-income communities and developing countries;
- Workshops / seminars / conferences with international scope on the topics covered by this RL, including dissemination of project results and challenges (2);
- PhD thesis projects to be initiated within the project (3);
- Scientific employment: new positions for researchers with PhD (2) and research assistants (3).
Results
- Publications related to this Research Line are available on the UNU Collections repository.
- Events related to this Research Line are available on the UNU-EGOV institutional website.
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Research Line 4 – EGOV networking and capacity building laboratory
The expected scientific outcomes of this RL are as follows:
RL4.R1 – A portfolio of institutional capacity building programmes targeting high-level public officials in national, regional and local governance levels, with a broad thematic scope.
RL4.R2 – A collection of training resources associated to the themes and results addressed in research lines RL1, RL2 and RL3.
RL4.R3 – An international network of universities devoted to multidisciplinary research in digital governance.
RL4.R4 – New systematisation results on research and action-research methodologies in the EGOV domain.
RL4.R5 – A program of in-house personalised training for high-level public officials working on concrete problems / challenges from their home institutions.
RL4.R6 – Several international conferences / forums / initiatives on cutting-of-edge themes on digital governance.
The deliverables associated to the scientific outcomes of this RL will be:
- Capacity building programmes on several cutting-of-edge topics in digital governance and the digital transformation of the State and Public Administration, targeting different audiences and contexts (6);
- Research-oriented seminars on the themes and results addressed in research lines RL1, RL2, and RL3, articulated with doctoral programmes on Information Systems, Informatics, Public Administration or Political Science (3);
- Open training and other educative resources on EGOV (5);
- Launching of an academic programme at MSc level in collaboration with a local university in Cabo Verde and Portuguese universities;
- One collaborative strategic network on EGOV and innovation in Africa;
- International conferences for academics, researchers, and practitioners on cutting-of-edge themes and challenges for digital governance (4);
- Research papers in indexed journals and top-international conferences on research planning, assessment, measurement, and evaluation for the EGOV domain (4);
- Research technical reports on case-studies on EGOV innovation systematised from the in-house personalised training programme (10) ;
- Scientific employment: new positions for researchers with PhD (1) and research assistants (2).
Results
- Publications related to this Research Line are available on the UNU Collections repository.
- Events related to this Research Line are available on the UNU-EGOV institutional website.