Four Global E-Government Collaborations

Four international working groups have been created to flesh out the cutting edge of where Electronic Government is headed globally: (1) Online Consultation and Public Policy Making, (2) An Open Platform for Urban Simulation, (3) A Comparative and Transnational Research Agenda in North America, and (4) Digital Governance and Hotspot Geoinformatics for Monitoring, Early Warning, and Management.

How can these international resesarch efforts contribute to the next e-government agenda?

Post your comments to the Transitions site

Over the past decade, growing evidence demonstrates the emergence of a global field of research at the intersection of government, society, and information and communication technologies.  In the US, the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Digital Government (DG) Research Program provided leadership and support for this relatively new domain of research.  In Europe, the European Commission, as part of its Information Society Technologies (IST) program, has also sponsored an ambitious e-government research program. At the same time, the UN and World Bank and government research councils in other parts of the world sponsor established or emerging digital government research. 

Under a grant from NSF for “Building and Sustaining an International Digital Government Research Community,” the Center for Technology in Government at the University at Albany recently selected four international e-government working groups that will collaborate over several years to craft and carry out joint research agendas around comparative and transnational research questions.  All four should be of interest to the next US Administration, both as individually important topics and as examples of international cooperation: 

Online Consultation and Public Policy Making. This group will evaluate the policy and other social impacts of online citizen consultation initiatives aimed at influencing actual government decision-making, and will examine how the design of these types of initiatives is affected by cultural, social, legal, and institutional contexts. The research will look at the impact of online consultations on government agencies, policy makers, public participants, and civil society organizations.  One goal is a jointly authored book to help government and nongovernmental organizations identify, measure and design successful e-consultations. Co-chairs: Peter Shane, Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University, and Stephen Coleman, University of Leeds, UK.

An Open Platform for Urban Simulation. The goal of this program is to assist governments in making more informed evaluations of alternative land use and transportation policies, which play a critical role in determining the economic vitality, livability, and sustainability of urban areas. The researchers will develop an Open Source software modeling platform and set of interacting modeling components that are realistic and credible tools for evaluating a range of policies that governments in Europe and North America need in order to better address the complex problems of transportation, urban development, and environmental quality. Co-chairs: Paul Waddell, Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs, University of Washington, and Michel Bierlaire, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland.

A Comparative and Transnational Research Agenda in North America. This project seeks to better understand the role of technology in the ability of individual nations to respond to public problems and in the ability of nations to work together in response to transnational problems. The focus on Canada, Mexico, and the United States will allow the researchers to look at topics that are germane to North America as a whole. They will explore, compare, and test new models of cooperation and collaboration for working across geographic and political boundaries, presidential and parliamentary systems, and both advanced and developing economies. Co-chairs: Theresa Pardo, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, and Luis F. Luna-Reyes, Universidad de las Americas, Mexico.

Digital Governance and Hotspot Geoinformatics for Monitoring, Etiology, Early Warning, and Management. This project will focus on developing a prototype geoinformatic hotspot survellience system that relies on advanced statistical techniques for detecting hotspots of critical importance to governments around the world in such areas as public health, watershed management, persistent poverty, and networked infrastructure security. By developing a prototype system based on live case studies in both the developed and developing worlds, this group seeks to help governments acquire and assess the information they need to identify emerging problems and develop policies and make decisions involving international impacts and resource allocations. Co-chairs: G.P. Patil, Department of Statistics, Penn State University, and collaborators in India, Indonesia, Italy, and China.

Post your comments to the Transitions site