Expected start date:

2022•09•01

Expected end date:

2025•06•30

Institute:

UNU-EGOV

Project Status:

Ongoing

Project Type:

Research

Project Manager :

Joana Amorim Carvalho

Background: The challenges brought up by the way cities around the world are evolving and growing demand new forms of cooperation among public and private entities, social organisations and citizens. Government Information Networks (GIN) are a form of organizing such cooperation that aim at achieving sustainable societies while managing to offer good quality of life to citizens and to respond to growing community needs and demands. Information technology (IT) plays a key role in GIN, enabling the achievement of their full potential and reinforcing their prospect of contributing to deal with the challenges faced by modern governments. However, existing studies on GIN overlook IT and how it can be used to improve or transform the role played by GIN in cities and states, particularly involving third sector organisations.

Beneficiaries: Local governments and third sector social organisations that have or intend to create a cooperation network; Policy makers focused on social action and/or who plan emergency relief situations; The scientific community as new knowledge will complement existing frameworks and models that represent GIN from other perspectives, offering a broader view of the concept and its application.

Objectives: 

O1. Understand the role IT has or may have in Government Information Networks

O2. Develop a framework to guide the use of IT in Government Information Networks and test it

O3. Propose policy recommendations for IT use in Government Information Networks

Activities:

a1.1 Identify the types of information used in GIN and their purpose/relevance

a1.2 Identify IT that is already being used or viable to be used in networks’ context

a2.1 Extend the main existing frameworks on GINs to include IT, or design a new one specific for IT

a2.2 Identify and apply an evaluation tool/method to assess network performance before and after the proposed framework application

a2.3 Test the validity of the proposed framework with its application in a real case

a2.4 Propose a final prescriptive framework for IT use in GIN

Outcomes: The project contributes to understanding, structuring, and making new knowledge on GIN available for both academia and practitioners. Expanding on existing frameworks by the inclusion of the Information Technology aspect will offer a complete prescriptive tool that can be used to establish new GIN or improve existing ones, facilitating the cooperation between governmental and non-governmental actors.