Consultation Workshop

FP7 Work Programme

WP2009-2010
28 MAY 2008, BRUSSELS

••• ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling

• Briefing Paper
• Agenda
• Synopses / Keynote Speakers
 FP7 'ICT for governance and policy modelling'
A briefing paper for the preparation of the FP7 work programme 2009-10

It is now recognised that on-line collaborations have the potential to trigger and shape significant changes
in the way future societies will function. Extrapolation of the present exponential growth leads to scenarios
where very large percentages of populations could, if equipped with the right tools, simultaneously voice
opinions and views on major and minor societal challenges, and thereby herald the transition to a different
form of dynamically participative "eSociety". While such scenarios are readily imaginable, it must be
recognised that we currently do not have appropriate governance models, process flows, or analytical tools
with which to properly understand, interpret, visualise and harness the forces that can be unleashed.
By 2020 there could be no barriers any more for citizens and businesses to participate in decision making
at all levels. Advanced tools – possibly building on gaming and virtual reality technologies will enable
citizens to track most decision making processes and see how their contributions have been (or are being)
taken into account. Current linguistic and cultural barriers will have been largely overcome through use of
semantic-based cooperation platforms. Opinion mining, visualisation and modelling into virtual reality-
based outcomes and scenarios will help to both shape, guide and form public opinion. The processes and
tools will have to demonstrate transparency and trust and be devoid of manipulation. The outcomes of
such consultative processes should be faster and more efficient in terms of revising policy and making
decisions

a) Governance and Participation Toolbox

Significant outcomes expected include: Advanced tools embodying structural, organisational and new
governance models to empower and engage all types of societal groups and communities, enable them to
exploit mass cooperation platforms and allow governments to incorporate their input. Based on semantic
co-operation platforms, these tools will enable the creation, learning, sharing and tracking of group
knowledge that cuts across language and cultural interpretation. They should also facilitate transparency
and tracking of inputs to the policy making process. The toolbox must include security, identity and access
controls to ensure privacy and, where appropriate, the delineation of constituency domains according to
the specific needs of government applications.

b) Policy Modelling, Simulation and Visualisation

Significant outcomes expected include: Real-time opinion visualisation and simulation solutions based on
modelling, simulation, visualisation and mixed reality technologies, data and opinion mining, filtering and
aggregation. This will encompass novel instruments which allow consideration of options based on the
simulated behaviour and wishes of individuals, groups or society as a whole to understand the possible
outcomes of government proposals, decisions and legislation.
The focus is on advanced tools and technologies to perform large-scale societal simulations integrating all
possible variables, parameters, interferences, scenarios necessary to forecast potential outcomes and
impacts of proposed policy measures. The solutions will be based on a systems dynamics methodology to
analyse and model complex systems, cooperative vs. competitive systems, and also the use of "cloud"
computing applications in order to pool web-wide computing resources for large scale data analysis and
storage.
The tools should exploit the vast reserves of Europe's public sector collective data and knowledge resources
which are also developing dynamically. These encompass data originated from individuals as well as data
aggregated for various purposes, and which are generated from all societal actors but which are
legitimately owned by or available to government. Underlying functions to be integrated include
translation, process modelling, data mining, pattern recognition and visualisation as well as other gaming-
based simulation, forecasting and back-casting as well as goal-based optimisation techniques.

May 2008
c) Road mapping and Networking for 'participation, governance and policy modelling'
(i) RTD roadmap for the domain of ICT for participation, governance and policy modelling to identify
emerging technologies and potential applications, taking into account technology trends as well as social
behaviours and demands, business potential and impact. It will also consider emerging research directions
in the domain and will include insight into research activities undertaken in non-EU countries.
(ii) A dynamic 'Network' to encourage networking of relevant stakeholders and teams working in these
areas and to encourage multidisciplinary constituency building;

Expected Impact:

• Improved empowerment of individuals, groups and societies through the use of next generation
governance tools for mass co-operation and opinion forming
• More efficient collection of feedback from public sector organisations to continuously improve the
governance.
• Improved prediction of policy measures impacts, with increased contribution and involvement of
individuals and societies, supported by new technologies.
• Intelligent and optimised use of vast public sector knowledge resources for policy modelling.
• Improved link between the public and policy makers through real time opinion visualisation and
data mining.
• Increased trust of the citizens through transparency and feedback of their contributions to policy
making.

Instruments:

It is expected that the objectives could be achieved through a number of STREPs (co-operative research
projects in the range of 2-3 million euro funding and duration of 2-3 years), and couple of support
measures for road mapping and networking.

If you wish to receive additional details, please contact: INFSO-EGOV-FP7@ec.europa.eu

May 2008
 Agenda

09:00 – 09:30 Registration & Coffee

09:30 - 09:40 Welcome & Introduction

- Antti Ilmari Peltomäki, Deputy Director General, DG INFSO

09:40 – 09:55 WP2009-2010 Objectives of the consultation and state of play

- David Broster, HoU, eGovernment & CIP Operations

09:55 – 10:10 Briefing of previous consultations: setting the scene

- Jeremy Millard, Danish Technology Institute

10:10- 11:10 Key note speeches (20 min each) – "facing up to changes"
- Anthony Williams, VP, Government 2.0, New Paradigm
- Elmar Husmann, Manager, Strategy & Change, Innovation, IBM
- Andy Mulholland, Global Technology Officer, CAPGEMINI

11:10-11:30 Coffee

11:30-12:30 Keynote speeches (20 min each) – "harnessing multi-disciplines"

- Ali Bayar, President of EcoMod Network, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
- Scott Moss, Director of the Centre for Policy Modelling, Manchester Metropolitan
University

12:30 – 13:45 Sandwich lunch (provided)

13:45- 14:55 Plenary Discussions

Presentation from Participants - Challenges and Research Opportunities
Maximum of 10 presentations (3 min each and one slide only per presentation)

a) eGovernance models and tool box

Web 3.0 and societal interaction tools
Collaborative and mass innovation
Opinion mining, filtering and aggregation
Decision making process and transparency

14:55 – 15:05 Coffee

15:05 – 16:15 Plenary discussions (continued)

b) Policy modelling, simulation, visualisation
Predicting policy impact
Visualisation, mixed reality and gaming technologies
Cloud computing and Web3.0
Data preservation and security

c) Stakeholders, critical mass, networking

Expected impact
Targets and ambitions of possible proposals

16:15 – 16:30 Roadmap to the Workprogramme preparation

- Aniyan Varghese, eGoverment Unit, DG INFSO

16:30- 16:45 Conclusions and next steps

17:00 End of workshop

May 2008
 ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling: FP7 WP2009-2010
Consultation Workshop on 28th May 2008, Brussels

Synopses / Key note Speakers

Anthony Williams
Title: Wikinomics and the Future of Governance

For centuries, governments have maintained a near monopoly over planning, anticipating problems, and
overcoming obstacles in order to guide the development of modern nation-states. Today, governments find
themselves increasingly dependent for authority on a network of powers and counter-influences of which
they are just a part. Whether streamlining government service delivery or resolving complex global issues,
governments are either actively seeking—or can no longer resist—brader participation from citizens, civil
society and the private sector. Honing the capacity to integrate competencies and contributions from these
multiple participants will help governments meet expectations for a more responsive, resourceful, efficient
and accountable form of governance. Wikinomics co-author Anthony Williams will discuss the
technological infrastructure, management competencies, and organizational flexibility that governments
will require to leverage the benefits of mass collaboration.

Short Biography

Anthony D. Williams is co-author with Don Tapscott of bestselling business book WIKINOMICS: How
Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. An avid researcher and writer, Anthony has pursued his interests
in the wide-ranging impacts of new technologies on social and economic life for over a decade. His work
has been featured in publications such as Business Week, the Globe and Mail and the Times of India, and
his work on innovation, intellectual property, and governance has been widely circulated in proprietary
syndicated research programs. Anthony is currently Vice President of New Paradigm, an internationally-
renown think tank that focuses on IT-enabled innovation and collaboration in business, government and
society. He was previously Research Director with Digital 4Sight and has consulted to Fortune 500 firms
and international institutions, including the World Bank. He holds a Masters in Research from the London
School of Economics and is a Ph.D. candidate there in the Department of Government.

Elmar Husmann
Title: Social dynamics, policies and the future of the Internet

Major worldwide initiatives are on the way to create a renewed technical basis for the Internet. This
includes on the technical side network protocols (such as IPv6), security mechanisms and converging
mobile data transfer standards (such as 4G), new ways of device connectivity and device intelligence
(Internet of things) and also new ways of rethinking distributed Internet applications and infrastructure
access (e.g. using service oriented computing and Grid- or virtualization approaches). But this also goes
along with a major transformation of the way social interaction will be possible. Whereas the term Web 2.0
referred to new social interaction mechanisms already emerging within the limits of the current Internet
possibilities - the future ICT possibilities will hold even more extended opportunities to change society
interactions – among citizens and also with regard to public institutions and political processes. In return
society interactions and policies are also influencing the way complex technical architectures are emerging.
The presentation will start to draw some first correlations between technological trends and social and
political interaction and will also explore of how IBM thinks that the awareness of the ICT R&D processes
towards social dynamics and policy dependencies can be increased.

Short Biogrpahy

Elmar Husmann has over ten years experience in managing large scale innovation programmes. He
reports to the head of the IBM strategy consulting group for Northern Europe and has been working with
industrial customers (such as BMW, Vodafone or DaimlerChrysler), start-ups and public institutions to
define investment and research programmes for the application of new ICT technologies specifically in the
area of new services and people interaction. Elmar also works with IBM global research and governmental
programmes on an integrated IBM research programme in the area of the Future Internet and new
Internet services. In this context Elmar is representing IBM in the steering committee of the Networked
European Software and Services Initiatives and the European Commission Future Internet Assembly.
Elmar has also been engaged with several European Commission expert groups, the UN Summit on the
Information Society and the OECD. Previous to IBM Elmar was leader of the German ICT strategy team of
PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Andy Mulholland

Title: From Common Market to Virtual Market - From National Citizen to Web Citizen

In some people’s life time they will have seen the creation of a common market for trade purposes move
into the closer integration of the European Union with all that this has meant around the borders and
decisions for enlargement. However, already the EU is experiencing the movement of ‘services’, a difficult
concept to define for wealth creation, start to become both virtual and dynamic. The citizens of the EU are
already effectively becoming part of a global virtual market where the rights of a national citizen will
experience expansion of choice and contraction of expected national rights. They will experience new areas
of competition in their fight for work and living standards, as well as new opportunities to find work in
new roles that are only beginning to become recognisable.

The EU and its citizens will need to come to terms with the removal of physical controls and barriers to
deal with the real issue; The importance of identity of people and provenance of goods / services in
determining source, rights and delivery of expectations. Leading to the importance of intelligence led
activities, (fighting VAT tax fraud or cross border crime etc.), all of which will require new and different
focussed activities between members states and EU.

Short Biography

Andy Mulholland is a leading thinker, and practitioner, helping Capgemini clients recognise the impact of
new technologies on their business models. His role of Global Chief Technology Officer includes advising
the Capgemini Group management board on all aspects of technology-driven market changes, in addition
he leads Capgemini’s advanced technology focus, and has a long established, successful Blog. His book,
‘Mashup Corporations; The End of Business As Usual’, co-authored with Chris Thomas of Intel led the way
in 2006 towards the now recognised use of Mashups, with his follow on book ‘Mesh Collaboration; making
business from the network of everything’ co-authored with Nick Earle of Cisco expands on the topic of the
capabilities of Web 2.0 for business.

Ali Bayar

Title: Policy modelling for economic governance in the future

With increasing globalisation, rapid technological changes, powerful computing platforms and algorithms,
gigantic databases, densely connected societies and business, the need for powerful policy modelling
platforms is tremendous. In a dynamic, uncertain, and complex environment, policymakers and the
business community need to monitor very closely the economic developments not only at the national and
macro level, but also at the sectoral, regional, and international levels in order to define, adjust and
implement their vision and strategies. Governments and businesses need strong analytical capabilities in
order to monitor the economy, assess the impacts of alternative measures and scenarios, run medium and
long run projections.
This paper focuses on the challenges in developing and using policy models in the future both for
businesses and government, as well as on the potential role of policy modelling in economic governance.

Short Biography

Ali Bayar is a professor of economics at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), a research professor at the
German Institute for Economic Research (DIW, Berlin), and the president of the Global Economic
Modelling Network (EcoMod). Prof. Bayar is specialized in policy modelling for impact assessment,
scenario analysis, forecasting, and projections. He has initiated, led and co-coordinated a large number of
policy-oriented research projects using advanced economic modelling techniques and published
extensively in this field. Prof. Bayar also provides advisory, consulting, and training services to a large
number of institutions on all continents.

May 2008
Scott Moss

Title: Alternative approaches to policy modelling: the role of ICT

There are two broad approaches to the analysis of business and public policy. One is based on qualitative
research (including soft systems methodology and grounded theory discovery) and the other is based on
quantitative (usually statistical or econometric) models. A key difference between the two is that
qualitative research places heavy emphasis on social interaction whereas quantitative models in the
tradition of economics and econometrics preclude social interaction as mediating or determining aspect of
social process. Agent based models differ from the traditional, formal social science model in giving pride
of place to social interaction -- a difference that enables the agent based models to capture complexity
manifest in unpredictable volatilities and network topologies. In my presentation on policy modelling, I
will focus on these differences and the ways in which ICT can enable and entice policy analysts to use
formal models with strong, evidence based, qualitative elements to explore policy options.

Short Biography

Scott Moss is professor of social simulation in the Centre for Policy Modelling, Manchester Metropolitan
University where he established the Centre in 1992. His research has been concentrated in agent based
social simulation integrating social, physical and/or biological models for purposes of policy analysis. In
2002, he was the inaugural president of the European Social Simulation Association and was coordinator
of a special interest group on simulation and social simulation in the European Network of Excellence in
Agent Based Computing (AgentLink). He was also the coordinator of the recently (April 2008) completed
CAVES Project on Complexity Agents Volatility Evidence and Scale. Recent publications are in the Journal
of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, the American Journal of Sociology and Advances in Complex
Systems. His PhD (1973) was in economics but he has long believed that economics is irredeemably bad
science because of its remoteness from any aspect of any actual society or economy. The social, like the
natural, sciences should be driven by evidence. (And he enjoys being provocative.)

Jeremy Millard

Title: Experts' contribution in the preparation of the FP7 consultation

In preparation for developing a possible new approach to eGovernment research in the FP7 ICT
Programme for the 2009-2010 period of work, a consultation workshop with 25 top European
stakeholders was held on 18 October 2007 in Brussels. The aim was to highlight the rationale and
priorities for FP7 eGovernment research with a view to addressing future challenges running up to 2020.
Two priority themes were proposed and developed in some detail: ‘MyGovernment 2020’ and ‘Pan-
European Semantic eGovernment Space’. This was followed in January 2008 when 9 high level experts,
from both Europe and North America, responded favourably to a briefing paper prepared by the Head of
the eGovernment Unit on research at EU level on eGovernance and eParticipation in support of an
eSociety. This focused on how ICT based disruptions impinge on democratic, consultative and policy
making processes within government and the public sector. As a result, the three themes to be presented
and discussed during the 28 May consultation workshop were prepared. The next step is to finalise and
agree the relevant text of the 2009-2010 FP7 Work Programme and to ensure that the research
constituency is sufficiently aware and supportive of this new research agenda.

Short Biography

Jeremy Millard (Danish Technological Institute) has 35 years experience working as an academic and
consultant with new technology and society in Europe and globally. Current assignments include leading a
pan-European study on eParticipation for the European Commission, and an in-depth evaluation of likely
eGovernment developments towards 2020 as an input to post-2010 policy making. In addition he has
recently worked on the eGovernment Awards 2007, provided support to the inclusive eGovernment Expert
Group of EU Member States, and conducted an impact assessment of EU supported eGovernment FP5
research. He is also currently assisting the OECD in examining eGovernment take-up and use, as well as
the UN in developing its eGovernance initiatives.

May 2008