Welcome to the GovTech Connect Community! The GovTech Connect Community is a space where everyone can share their knowledge and experience to grow together. This Collection conveys the results of GovTech Connect’s studies, events and news, along with the interesting content from other communities related to GovTech in Europe. GovTech Connect will spread the word and share content 

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GovTech market trends in Europe European GovTech initiatives Design thinking methodology and citizen engagement for GovTech solutions development. As part of these activities, GovTech Connect will see the launch of four European Boot camps to best prepare GovTech start-ups for collaboration with the public sector, as well as co-creative solution design with citizens. Webinars, workshops and other events will be occasions for networking and knowledge sharing. The activities will be carried out by a consortium led by Intellera Consulting, with partners PUBLIC, Lisbon Council and Politecnico di Milano.

Democracy across Europe has experienced immense challenge, change and uncertainty in recent years (Canal 2014; European Commission & Merkel; 2019) - from the rise of populism to decreasing levels of public trust in governance institutions and processes, to the war in Ukraine. Set against the backdrop of these issues, EUARENAS has been investigating how cities and urban spaces can strengthen legitimacy, identification and engagement within the democratic public sphere. Specifically, EUARENAS has been exploring how participation and deliberation in democracy and decision-making can be increased, and how voices and communities who are excluded from such arenas can be more actively involved.

Foresight is one of the research strands present in EUARENAS. In this project, foresight is both a tool for understanding democratic innovations as they emerge, and for engaging citizens and other actors in such innovations within the participatory and deliberative realms. Mixed method approaches to foresight that incorporate a diversity of activities such as media discourse analysis, lived experience storytelling, social media analysis, three horizons mapping, driver-mapping, scenario and visioning exercises and policy stress- testing have been used in EUARENAS to investigate and hypothesise over future trends and scenarios in participatory democracies.

From this work, we propose the following recommendations for Cities wanting to strive towards more equitable local democracies:

1. Address structural barriers to participation
2. Build relationships of trust
3. Invest in formal and civic education
4. Make decisions for the long-term

A more equitable, inclusive local democracy landscape is not too far in the distance for us to conceive it being possible. In fact, the future is now – the seeds to create it are already being planted, they just need nurturing by:

• Scaling and mainstreaming existing pilot or niche practices that are working locally – whether that beparticipatory budgeting, citizen assemblies or other smaller-scale projects – so that these become thenew ‘status quo’
• Adopting test and learn approaches to promote experimentation and on-going learning – this will enableongoing innovation and be responsive to society's needs
• Finding ways to celebrate and connect-up the small changes that are taking place - this will help peoplesee that progress is being made, even when it feels like things are changing too slow

The establishment of responsible innovation requires four key institutional changes. First, innovation must be value-driven. Second, an ethics of co-responsibility among stakeholders must be implemented. Third, innovation should be made directional and manageable. Fourth, market failures need to be addressed to facilitate necessary transformative changes, especially with regard to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This research project will take into account the evolution of Living Labs and various specialized Living Labs (e.g., urban labs, social labs, and responsible Living Labs) to assess to what extent they address these institutional requirements. On this basis, the concept of a new dedicated Living Lab: a Responsible Research and Innovation Lab for Engineering Practices will be introduced. Subsequently this dedicated Living Lab will be operationalised on a theme from the engineering sciences. We will consider innovations stemming from digital tech for Health issues, additive manufacturing or other engineering pratices. We will deploy participatory foresight, to enable a form of anticipatory governance of emerging new innovations.

This dedicated ling lab is contextualised in a broader context of a deliberative democracy: Living Labs can be seen as spaces for Organisational Learning and Collective Experimentation:

Living Labs: ‘real-life test and experimentation environments that foster co-creation and open innovation among the main actors of the Quadruple Helix Model, namely: Citizens, Governmental Organisations, Industrial organisations and Academia’ (ENoLL 2024)

It operationalises an important feature of Responsible Research and Innovation: Making stakeholders co-responsible and mutually responsive to each other by engaging them in an open co-creation/ co-enquiry process. (among other on the basis of participatory foresight of emerging technologies and innovations)

The idea of 'openess' and 'mutual reponsiveness' as values of actors and institutions will also be subject of analysis.

Science and innovation can be better fostered in an open, democratic society than in other types of societies. The norm of civic participation in a ‘democracy’ is a lived ideal for citizens, just as the norm of ‘communalism’ is a lived ideal for the scientific community. Both norms presuppose the values of ‘openness’ and 'mutual responsiveness' among scientist and citizens.

This highlights ‘openness’ not as a prescriptive norm but as a value of the institution of science. Simultaneously, ‘openness’ is also an institutional value of a democracy.

However, science and democracy are dependent on the extent to which scientist and citizens engage on the basis of these norms. How can we best encourage and incentivise those?

Project duration: 1-1-2023 till 1-4-2027

Project partners: RWTH Aachen University with team members Prof. dr. Stefan Boschen, Julia Backhaus and Dr. Dr.phil Rene von Schomberg