Connecting people to policy making: the Futurium experiment Symposium "Generation Web 2.0: using new technologies in the public sector in Europe", Tallinn,

Connecting people to policy making: the Futurium experiment

Symposium "Generation Web 2.0:using new technologies in the public sector in Europe",

Tallinn, 26-27 June 2014

Franco AccordinoEuropean Commission - DG CONNECT

Energy positive

Enhanced-humans

Big Big Data“Organic” computing

Cloudcomputing

Energy efficient

Internet of Things

3D PrintingComplex systems

Virtualisation

2015-20 2040-50

Fou

nd

ati

on

s

Tech

nolo

gie

s

Ch

allen

ges/I

ssu

es

Financial stability

Sustainability

Healthyageing

Resourceefficiency

Climatechanges

Policy Making 2.0

TrustSecurityprivacy

Smart citiesResource

sharingPolicy

Making 3.0

Towardsimmortality

Interim/betastatus

Governance

QuantumInternet

Citizen empowerment

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

ICT-Bio-Nano-Neuro-Cogno-Quantum convergence

Big Data

“Play & Rewind”

Bio-devicesSimulated

worlds

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

Futures(Visions)

Policies

Inspire

Impact on individuals, society,

economy, environment,

politics, technologies,…Real world

Trends

ScientificEvidence

Sense & Analyse data, Identify issues and challenges,

Elicit knowledge

(Re-)shapeInform

Envision

IMPLEMENTATION /REVIEW

DESIGN

Stakeholders

Policy makers

Other factors than evidence

SocialNetworks

Rat

ion

al, s

cien

tifi

c, a

nal

ytic

alEmotional, intuitive, holistic

Rules and Laws

Scientific evidence & people‘s opinion

6/10

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

7/10

Futurium Data Model

Trend

Every European

Digital

Future

Future

Future

DAE Policy

A1 A101 AA

BA C

Futures (visions)

Policy Ideas

pillars

actions

Agents

p1 p7

2012 2020 2050

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, …)

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

Agents:• Stakeholders in broad sense (EC, MS,

Regions, Industry, Citizens…)• Implementers (those who execute

the actions)• Verifiers• Decision makers

Policy

AA

p p

AA

FutureFutureFuture

@? #

Discrete Objects of Collective Inquiry

Co-Creation

• Bottom-up• Spontaneous• Emergent

Sense Making

• Top-Down• Structured• Convergent

Futurium

Foresight methodology

Reporting to decision makers

Sense-making

Futurium co-creation

Sense-making

Sense-making

Asynchronous sense-making steps over a continuous online engagement process

DigitalFutures

Futu

rium

Futu

rizens

Futures

120+ Events, 3000+ co-creators

30+ Webinars

~1800> Futurium members

Breaking into new policy making practices

Futurium model

20+ Requests for take-up

11 Themes

200+ Futures

1800+ Evidence items

Outcomes

11/10

Stakeholders

ParticipatoryTools

Policy Makers

mine & visualise

mine & visualise

Social Media (Twitter, FB, G+,…)

Participate

Participate

Real world data

ParticipateParticipate

Data Gathering

Data Crawling

OpenData

KnowledgeHarvesting Tools

Futurium’s conceptual architecture

Gaming, multi-agent simulations,…

Foresight tools: workflows, Delphi, back-cast diagrams…

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

Data Mining, statistics, visual analytics

Basic data types: visions, policies,

evidence

Communities

MessagingEvents

Wiki

Blogs

Desirability Plausibility

SMART policy attributes

Impact

Library

Polls

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 pre-

conditions 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

Futurium Sense Making

New European Commission

New European ParliamentSpring 2014

Autumn 2014

Inspired by long-term advances of digital technologies

"Hints"

2015-2025 (?)

Policy Ideas

Visions2040-2050

EC mandates2010-2014 2015-2019

Barroso II

Policy Frameworks2010-2020 (Europe 2020)

Trends2020+

+ Anticipation

+ Evidence+ Participation

+ Agility

Open DataInternet

Foresight Approach: back-casting + scenario planning

Policy choices

Futurium timeline

Oct 2012

Mar 2012Nov 2012

EP/EIF(futurium kick-off)

ICT2013Nov 2013

DAA DublinJun 2013

11 Compelling themes