Digital Disruptive Technologies to Co-create, Co-produce and Co-manage Open Public Services along with Citizens

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - CO3 (Digital Disruptive Technologies to Co-create, Co-produce and Co-manage Open Public Services along with Citizens)

Okres sprawozdawczy: 2020-04-01 do 2021-12-31

The CO3 project aimed at assessing benefits and risks of using disruptive digital technologies in the co-creation, co-production and co-management of public services along with citizens. The technologies considered are: Blockchain, Augmented Reality, Geolocated Social Networks, Interactive Democracy tools and Gamification.
Specific Objectives:
Piloting the transformative technologies’ ecosystem in Paris, Turin, Athens.
Evaluating the outcomes of the new interaction model between PA and citizens in three dimensions: social and cultural; economic; legal implications.
Provide pathways for the PAs, for a sustainable introduction of the co-production model.
The project 1) designed an innovative co-production model based on the concept of “Augmented Commoning Area” (ACA); 2) developed a novel digital platform that integrates the 5 technologies; 3) identified the main enabling factors, added values, constraint and risks.
The Action has been effective in developing and testing an innovative platform of integrated disruptive technologies, and in adapting it to contingent social requirements, by also addressing the constraints caused by the COvid-19 pandemic. Relevant lessons have been learnt on opportunities, risks and constraints. The action showed that disruptive technologies both offer new opportunities and incentives to co-production (such as the secure and autonomous digitalization of values through blockchain tokens), and generate new challenges to be managed (such as resistances to changes within the PA, or the digital divide and accessibility issues). It emerged that these technologies, in order to actuate their disruptive potentials, need to be accompanied by a wide innovation process concerning social, cultural, institutional and economic facilitating conditions. The specific needs of the local stakeholders must be the starting point of the co-design methodologies, to be addressed with a flexible offer of digital tools. At the same time, the novel affordances of these technologies can trigger social and institutional changes in the medium/long term, since they stimulate potential users to envisage new social interactions.

The project started by identifying PA/citizens' needs, and a model for their collaboration through co-design methodologies, around the concept of “Augmented Commoning Area” (ACA). Based on these requirements, the disruptive technologies have been developed and integrated in a mobile application with AR features to access the different tools.
Three pilots have been established in Athens, Pilot and Turin for testing. They covered six services scenarios in different areas: Socio-Economic Networking, Digital Urbanism, Knowledge sharing. A general stakeholders engagement methodology and three specific engagement plans have been implemented. During the second and third year, the pilots were impacted by the constraint caused by the Covid-19 pandemic: the engagement plans have been rescheduled, and some of the platform’s functionalities have been partially modified in order to enable interactions at distance as well, even if supporting social interactions in public physical spaces remained at the core of the ACA model.
A set of interrelated researches for outcomes evaluation and impact assessment has been implemented. Social and cultural aspects have been taken into account by the Realist Evaluation on the pilots implementation, and by the Socio-Economic, Cultural and Ecological Assessment on the different territorial impacts. Economic aspects have been taken into account with the definition of a Business Model for the PAs implementing ACA model. Legal aspects have also been considered.
The project achieved relevant exploitable results and hands-on knowledge on the implementation of integrated disruptive technologies in real-context public services scenarios. The technical partners developed new features, components and integration methodologies, exploitable as single components or integrated. The pilot partners identified in their own local context: the co-production domains that seems more adapt or ready; the main constraining factors; some disruptive socio-economic processes that are promising, but still slowed down by the existing legal framework or by the uneven availability of advanced digital devices; some facilitating factors to leverage on.
The related outputs have been made publicly available through the dissemination activities and the project website. Developers can access the open source codes of the technologies. Public Administrations and Commoners can access information and training tools in order to launch local digital co-production processes: the CO3 Co-design methodologies and Gamification toolkit, the CO3 model for Augmented Commoning Participatory Services, the CO3 Comparative legal glossary; infographics and videos. Three Policy Briefs are available for policy makers, and the evaluation and impact assessment for other researchers.

The CO3 project is innovative in many aspects both regarding the technological integration of different disruptive technologies, and the approach to public services co-production. AR, Blockchain and Gamification have been focused on public urban spaces and commoning processes rather than individual behaviors. Civic Social Networks and Interactive Democracy tools have been enriched with new functionalities in integration with the other technologies. They provide citizens with opportunities such as transactions of values, decision making, localization of information and new forms of interaction not covered by social media and the Web 2.0.
The main results of the CO3 project are: the CO3 model of PA/Citizens interaction supported by disruptive technologies; the CO3 technological platform; the three pilot experiences; the definition of pathways for the PA, according to the model of the “Augmented Commoning Participatory Services”; the evaluation and impact assessment results as basis for further research on the socio-technical implication of disruptive technologies.
The CO3 project impacts on the enablement of public authorities to develop pathways for the introduction of disruptive technologies while addressing their societal challenges, by: showcasing viable applications in specific service sectors; highlighting the public’s perceptions and feedbacks; identifying the main assets, risks and cost factors, and divulgating them through methodologies, training tools and policy recommendations. Secondly, it generates evidence-based knowledge on digital democracy and on new ways of ensuring public services, based on user needs, and namely on: technical feasibility of integrated solutions, advantages and criticalities of the 5 technologies addressed; possible mismatch between the needs addressed, or the social contexts and the technology functionalities and required skills. Thirdly, even if limited by the Covid-related constraints in gathering data on the economic benefits for the users and of the optimization of existing processes, however the project generated evidence-based awareness in the local stakeholders involved on concrete resources and pathways for future innovative processes in the medium-long term.

Infographic of a use case with Geolocated social network and Augmented Reality

Infographic of a use case with Interactive democracy tools and Augmented Reality

The Augmented Commoning Area Model of PA/Citizens interaction with disruptive technologies

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - CO3 (Digital Disruptive Technologies to Co-create, Co-produce and Co-manage Open Public Services along with Citizens)

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