Transforming into Open, Innovative and Collaborative Governments

The TROPICO project (Transforming into Open, Innovative and Collaborative Governments) is a EU Horizon 2020 project. TRIPICO aims to comparatively examine how public administrations are transformed to enhance collaboration in policy design and service delivery, advancing the participation of public, private and societal actors. It will analyse collaboration in and by governments, with a special emphasis on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT), and its consequences.

Assessing the institutional conditions and individual drivers and barriers is crucial for understanding the transformation of governments towards greater collaboration. The state structures and administrative traditions provide different 'starting points' of the public sectors in Europe. Likewise, individual attitudes, skills, and expertise of officials play a decisive role in understanding this transformation. Subsequently, TROPICO will examine collaboration practices within governments (internal) and between public, private and societal actors (external), across a variety of policy sectors. We will study the actors and means of innovative collaboration, including ICT, and how they are interlinked. Lastly, assessing the effects of collaboration for legitimacy, accountability and government efficiency is essential to provide a comprehensive analysis of the transformation towards open, innovative, and collaborative governments.

Our multidisciplinary project will follow a truly comparative approach, examining ten countries representing the five administrative traditions in Europe: Nordic (Norway, Denmark), Central and Eastern European (Estonia, Hungary), Continental (Netherlands, Germany), Napoleonic (France, Spain; Belgium (mixed)), and Anglo-Saxon (United Kingdom). We will combine rigorous quantitative and qualitative research methods. TROPICO puts a strong emphasis on the inclusion of stakeholders and users throughout the project to test and reflect upon the applicability of our key findings and policy recommendations.

TROPICO søger at forstå, hvordan samskabelse indenfor udformning og implementering af offentlige politikker fungerer og kan forbedres. Det vil især belyse, hvilken rolle IT spiller for samskabelsesprocesser. Studiet omfatter 10 lande og benytter sig af en række forskellige metoder.
RUC bidrager til flere arbejdspakker i projektet, og har ansvaret for en af disse, som har særligt fokus på redegørbarhed og legitimitet.