Connecting people to policy making: the Futurium experiment

Connecting people to policy making: the Futurium experiment Franco Accordino European Commission - DG CONNECT

Symposium "Generation Web 2.0: using new technologies in the public sector in Europe", Tallinn, 26-27 June 2014

Policy Making 2.0

3D Printing Cloud computing Complex Big Data systems Internet Energy of Things Virtualisation efficient

“Conventional” ICT (Silicon based, Packet switching, Boolean, …)

2015-20

Challenges/Issues

Healthy ageing

Trust Security privacy

Smart cities

Technologies

Financial stability

Climate changes

Foundations

Sustainability

Resource efficiency

Resource sharing

Interim/beta status

Towards immortality

Governance Citizen empowerment

“Organic” computing

“Play & Rewind”

Policy Making 3.0

Big Big Data

Bio-devices Quantum Energy Internet positive

Enhanced-humans Simulated worlds

ICT-Bio-Nano-Neuro-CognoQuantum convergence

2040-50

Today's socio-political drivers • • • • • • • • • •

Data, computing and connectivity everywhere Government's control on people Individual empowerment Inclusion and skills Systemic automation Erosion of human employment Inter-generational tensions Costs/impacts of public services Rise of movements Disaffection of people from public matters

Futurium purpose To enable a collective inquiry

into the ideas and aspirations of citizens, in order to feed future

policy reflections

Scientific evidence & people‘s opinion Emotional, intuitive, holistic

Futures (Visions)

Rational, scientific, analytical

Other factors than evidence

Rules and Laws

Social Networks

Envision DESIGN

Inform

Scientific Evidence

Sense & Analyse data, Identify issues and challenges, Elicit knowledge

Inspire

Stakeholders (Re-)shape

Policies Policy makers

IMPLEMENTATION / REVIEW

Trends

Real world

Impact on individuals, society, economy, environment, politics, technologies,…

Crowd engagement strategy 1) Host conversations/dialogues with stakeholders • Standard format: participatory brainstorming • Contributors: scientists, citizens, policy makers,… • Virtual (webinar) & in-person meetings • Going local: Member States, schools, conferences… • Viral process: loosely coordinated, but with simple, shared rules 2) Capture content into an open, standard online platform (futurium) • Based on a fixed meta-model (futures, policies,…) & workflow • Enabling co-creation (wiki), voting, forecasting, back casting, mapping,… • Automatic semantic annotation, data mining, correlation, fact-finding

• Agent-based gaming and simulation

emergent collective intelligence 6/10

Futurium Data Model Discrete Objects of Collective Inquiry 2012

2020

2050

Trend

Future Future

Futures (visions)

Future

Every European Digital

Policy

pillars

p1

p7

actions

A1

A101

A

B

Future

Future

DAE

Policy Ideas

Agents

Future

p

C

A

?

Policy

p

A

Futures: • Desirability (emotional view) • Likelihood (rational/scientific view) • Causality: antecedent->consequent • Forecasting vs. back casting • Challenges and Opportunities

A

A

A

@

#

7/10

A

Policies: • Are expressed as S.M.A.R.T. objectives • May be structured (e.g. pillars) • Atomic level: timed actions • Have a measurable impact • Other measurable attributes (e.g. plausibility, innovation, …)

Agents: • Stakeholders in broad sense (EC, MS, Regions, Industry, Citizens…) • Implementers (those who execute the actions) • Verifiers • Decision makers

Foresight methodology

Sense Making

Co-Creation • • •

• • •

Top-Down Structured Convergent

Bottom-up Spontaneous Emergent Futurium

Reporting to decision makers

Asynchronous sense-making steps over a continuous online engagement process

Sense-making

Sense-making Sense-making

Futurium co-creation

Outcomes  120+ Events, 3000+ cocreators

 Breaking into new policy making practices

 30+ Webinars

 Futurium model

 ~1800> Futurium members

 20+ Requests for take-up

Digital Futures Futures  11 Themes  200+ Futures  1800+ Evidence items

Futurium’s conceptual architecture Social Media (Twitter, FB, G+,…)

Participate

Participatory Tools

Participate

Participate

Participate

Data Crawling Policy Makers

Stakeholders

Open Data

Data Gathering mine & visualise mine & visualise

Knowledge Harvesting Tools Real world data 11/10

Semantic tools: fact-finding, search, text mining, …

Impact Plausibility

Desirability

Gaming, multi-agent simulations,…

SMART policy attributes

Data Mining, statistics, visual analytics

Polls Blogs

Basic data types: visions, policies, evidence Communities Events

Library

Wiki

Messaging

Foresight tools: workflows, Delphi, backcast diagrams…

More features 1) Futurium is a e-Participation platform to enable grassroots engagement into foresight

2) Content co-created on Futurium is informative rather than deliberative 3) Suitable to support civic society engagement in line with Art 11 of the Treaty

More information Paper: "The Futurium - a Foresight Platform for Evidence-Based and Participatory Policymaking"

http://www.springerlink.com/openurl.asp?genre=a rticle&id=doi:10.1007/s13347-013-0108-9 The futurium platform:

http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/futurium/

Thanks!

Background Slides

eGovernment Action Plan

• Empower citizens and businesses • Reinforce mobility in the Single Market • Enable efficiency and effectiveness

• Create the necessary key enablers and preconditions to make things happen By 2015 50% of citizens and 80% of businesses should use eGovernment services.

Case Study: Digital Futures, reflections to prepare for the renewal of the EU policy context in 2014 Inspired by long-term advances of digital technologies

"Hints"

Foresight Approach: backcasting + scenario planning Visions 2040-2050

+ Anticipation + Evidence + Participation + Agility Policy Ideas

Trends 2020+ 2015-2025 (?)

Policy Frameworks 2010-2020 (Europe 2020)

Open Data Internet

2010-2014

Barroso II

2015-2019

EC mandates

Futurium timeline Mar 2012

Policy choices

ICT2013 Nov 2013 Oct 2012

DAA Dublin Jun 2013

Nov 2012 EP/EIF (futurium kick-off)

11 Compelling themes