Although Open Government, Government 2.0 and Open Government Data have been at the centre of the debate on e-Government policy over the last two years, the European Union still lacks comparable data on transparency. European Regional Policy is the ideal context to test a Benchmarking 2.0: it involves all Member States and EU regions, influences national and regional policies and can push the transparency agenda in those areas of Europe where administrative culture and capacity is traditionally low. In this paper the datasets on beneficiaries of European Structural Funds provided by the Managing Authorities of the Operational Programmes of EU27 are evaluated through a scheme based on the 8 principles of Open Government Data. The paper compares the performance of the European Countries for the first time and sets new targets that could be considered as possible requirements for the next programming period.
In this review essay, we have summarised the main insights, identified gaps and open issues that have emerged during the past three years of work in measurement and benchmarking of e-government in a European context
The document summarizes key aspects of EU Cohesion Policy, which invests €347 billion in 2007-2013 to support less well-off regions and citizens. It discusses how over 25% of the budget (€86 billion) supported research and innovation. It provides examples of ICT-related projects funded by Cohesion Policy. It outlines changes for 2014-2020, including thematic concentration on R&I, SME competitiveness, and low-carbon economy to maximize impact. It also discusses ensuring strategies for smart specialization and coherence across funds through a Common Strategic Framework.
The EU values its partnership with Jordan and is committed to further developing their close relationship. In 2009, Jordan made progress in reforms related to governance, transparency, human rights, and renewable energy. The EU allocated €223 million to Jordan from 2011-2013 to support political and economic reforms, as well as trade and sustainable development. EU trade with Jordan decreased in 2009 but the EU remains Jordan's second largest trading partner.
The document summarizes the current use and structure of EU regional funds, outlines the process and timeline for developing the future EU regional policy strategy, and presents initial positions on the future of the policy. The main funds are the ERDF, ESF, and Cohesion Fund, which are allocated based on GDP per capita. Key debates around the future policy focus on improving use of local resources, concentrating on priorities like innovation and climate change, and simplifying management. Positions varied but most saw a need for the policy to remain balanced across regions while addressing budget constraints.
Thoughtful Approaches to Implementation of Electronic Rulemakingijmpict
The Internet could fundamentally change the way that both government and public participates in making public policy but changes must be made in our existing civic infrastructure for that. The change in the law causes modifications in the policies/strategies in which this law has been implemented. This paper focuses on approaches to thoughtful implementation of electronic rulemaking could capture public interest, particularly in higher profile rulemakings and how online forums and dialogues can foster greater public participation in making public policy processes at the centre as well as presenting the need of semantic perspectives and semantic web technology to enhance the inference capability and to provide decision making capability.
The making of responsive innovation policies: varieties of evidence and their...Orkestra
Article by Edurne Magro and Alexander Kleibrink about the making of responsive innovation policies published by Palgrave Communications on June of 2018. Includes evidence in the Basque Country.
Open Government Data Review of Poland: Assessment and Proposals for ActionOECD Governance
The document summarizes an OECD report on open government data in Poland. Some key points:
1) Poland has made early efforts to open government data, but these have been driven more by legal compliance than creating value.
2) Political commitment has declined, leaving a leadership vacuum. Data availability and accessibility on portals are limited.
3) To make progress, Poland needs to focus on building an open data ecosystem by engaging communities, stimulating reuse of data, and developing skills/culture across government.
4) The report provides recommendations like evolving the national portal to be more collaborative, establishing standards, exploring user communities, and generating awareness/support across government.
In this review essay, we have summarised the main insights, identified gaps and open issues that have emerged during the past three years of work in measurement and benchmarking of e-government in a European context
The document summarizes key aspects of EU Cohesion Policy, which invests €347 billion in 2007-2013 to support less well-off regions and citizens. It discusses how over 25% of the budget (€86 billion) supported research and innovation. It provides examples of ICT-related projects funded by Cohesion Policy. It outlines changes for 2014-2020, including thematic concentration on R&I, SME competitiveness, and low-carbon economy to maximize impact. It also discusses ensuring strategies for smart specialization and coherence across funds through a Common Strategic Framework.
The EU values its partnership with Jordan and is committed to further developing their close relationship. In 2009, Jordan made progress in reforms related to governance, transparency, human rights, and renewable energy. The EU allocated €223 million to Jordan from 2011-2013 to support political and economic reforms, as well as trade and sustainable development. EU trade with Jordan decreased in 2009 but the EU remains Jordan's second largest trading partner.
The document summarizes the current use and structure of EU regional funds, outlines the process and timeline for developing the future EU regional policy strategy, and presents initial positions on the future of the policy. The main funds are the ERDF, ESF, and Cohesion Fund, which are allocated based on GDP per capita. Key debates around the future policy focus on improving use of local resources, concentrating on priorities like innovation and climate change, and simplifying management. Positions varied but most saw a need for the policy to remain balanced across regions while addressing budget constraints.
Thoughtful Approaches to Implementation of Electronic Rulemakingijmpict
The Internet could fundamentally change the way that both government and public participates in making public policy but changes must be made in our existing civic infrastructure for that. The change in the law causes modifications in the policies/strategies in which this law has been implemented. This paper focuses on approaches to thoughtful implementation of electronic rulemaking could capture public interest, particularly in higher profile rulemakings and how online forums and dialogues can foster greater public participation in making public policy processes at the centre as well as presenting the need of semantic perspectives and semantic web technology to enhance the inference capability and to provide decision making capability.
The making of responsive innovation policies: varieties of evidence and their...Orkestra
Article by Edurne Magro and Alexander Kleibrink about the making of responsive innovation policies published by Palgrave Communications on June of 2018. Includes evidence in the Basque Country.
Open Government Data Review of Poland: Assessment and Proposals for ActionOECD Governance
The document summarizes an OECD report on open government data in Poland. Some key points:
1) Poland has made early efforts to open government data, but these have been driven more by legal compliance than creating value.
2) Political commitment has declined, leaving a leadership vacuum. Data availability and accessibility on portals are limited.
3) To make progress, Poland needs to focus on building an open data ecosystem by engaging communities, stimulating reuse of data, and developing skills/culture across government.
4) The report provides recommendations like evolving the national portal to be more collaborative, establishing standards, exploring user communities, and generating awareness/support across government.
The paper discusses the current and potential role of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in anchoring economic reforms in the countries of the EU's Eastern Neighbourhood. It claims that it is too early to assess the success of the ENP in this sphere especially given that the actual progress of the ENP agenda has been limited. A review of the empirical evidence on external reform anchors confirms that the ENP shares some features with the EU accession process that has proven to be an effective mechanism supporting major economic, political and social changes in the countries concerned. The eventual ENP economic offer is meaningful and integration with the EU is getting stronger public support in several CIS countries and among their political elites. On the other hand several factors limit the reform anchoring potential of the ENP. This paper offers recommendations on policies that could strengthen this potential.
Authored by: Wojciech Paczynski
Published in 2009
Constructing A Knowledge Economy Composite Indicator With Imprecise Dataronicky
This document discusses constructing a composite indicator for measuring countries' performance in the knowledge-based economy using imprecise data. Some indicators only provide a range of possible values rather than a single value. The authors propose using multiple imputation to generate multiple completed datasets with imputed values for missing data. They then apply a "benefit of the doubt" method to create composite indicator values and confidence intervals based on the multiple imputed datasets in order to incorporate the uncertainty from imprecise data.
This document provides background on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the evolving relationship between the IMF and the European Union (EU). It discusses the IMF's origins, purpose, governance structure, core activities and recent changes resulting from the global financial crisis and European debt crisis. It notes that while the EU's formal representation within the IMF has not changed, the nature of the IMF-EU relationship has strengthened, particularly in the context of "Troika" programs in Eurozone countries. The increased IMF involvement in European affairs has raised questions about transparency, accountability and the future of EU-IMF relations. The document concludes by recommending ways the European Parliament can enhance oversight and dialogue regarding these issues.
Informe "Assessing the Employment and Social Impact of Energy Efficiency" publicado en diciembre de 2015 que analiza la situación del mercado laboral relacionado con la Eficiencia Energética.
This document provides a report on critical raw materials for the EU. It identifies 20 critical raw materials based on an analysis of 54 candidate materials. The critical raw materials have high economic importance for the EU combined with a high risk of supply disruption. Most of the world's supply of raw materials comes from outside the EU, with China being the largest single supplier. The report aims to identify priority actions to ensure secure access to critical raw materials and strengthen EU competitiveness and jobs.
Securing Critical Raw Materials for Europe - Presentation at IMMC Istanbul 2016 Martin Tauber
18th International Metallurgy & Materials Congress was held in the TUYAP Fair, Convention and Congress Center-Beylikdüzü / ISTANBUL between 29 September - 01 October 2016 together with the 18th International Metallurgical and Materials Conference organized by UCTEA the Chamber of Metallurgical and Materials Engineers, is the most comprehensive international event held in Turkey for 45 years which embraces all sectors in this area.Great honour to speak about Critical Raw Materials for Europe and Turkeys role in that. My thanks to the organising committee for the invitation.
This paper explores wage and income disparities in 14 EU member states during 1994–2001 by using the ECHP data. The results reveal that there are noticeable differences in wages across EU countries measured at both gross and net level. There is no evidence for wage convergence across countries over the period, which indicates that if convergence does exists, the process is rather slow. There are remarkable differences in the income levels across 14 EU member states. Within countries, however, income disparities seem to have declined in most cases. By using household-level data it is also possible to estimate a Gini coefficient at the level of the European Union. This enables us to compare income disparities between the United States and the EU. Based on the results, income disparities across households in the European Union are substantially smaller than those in the US.
The Ecoheat4EU project analyzed district heating and cooling (DHC) support policies across 14 European countries. It collected information on existing policies, analyzed their effectiveness, and developed recommendations. Key findings include:
1) Existing policies varied significantly in their effectiveness at supporting DHC due to inconsistencies and a lack of strategic recognition of DHC in energy policies.
2) Common effective support policies included burden measures on fossil fuels, financial support for DHC investments and operations, and strategic recognition of DHC in national energy strategies.
3) The project developed recommendations and roadmaps to strengthen DHC policies in each country and better support the growth of efficient, low-carbon DHC systems.
How advanced are Italian regions in terms of public eServicesLuigi Reggi
The study aims at providing evidence on regional differences in the diffusion of ICT in the public sector in Italy, with a focus on different types of public e-services (eGovernment, eHealth, eEducation and Intelligent Transport Systems). Data are ob-tained by merging four different surveys carried out by Between Co. (2010-11) and Istat - Italy’s National Bureau of Statistics (2009). We pursue a three-fold objective. First, we attempt to overcome the prevailing attitude to consider the various domains of public e-service provision as separate from one another. In other words, measuring the progress of digital government requires a holistic view to capture the wide spectrum of public e-services in different domains (e.g. local and national administrative procedures, transportation, education, etc.) and the different aspects of service provision (not just e-readiness or web interactivity, but also multi-channel availability and take-up). Second, we shall tackle a major drawback of existing statistics and benchmarking studies of public e-services, which are largely based on the count of services provided online, by including more sophisticated indicators both on quality of services offered and back office changes. Third, we develop a sound, open and transparent methodology for constructing a public eServices composite indicator based on OECD/EC-JRC Handbook. This methodology, which incorporates experts opinion into a Data Envelopment Analysis, will allow us to combine data on different e-service categories and on different aspects of their development, and will enable us to define a ranking of Italian regions in terms of ICT adoption and public e-service development.
Adoption of internal web technologies by oecd turkish government officialsijmpict
Use of communication and information channels for the OECD have been increasingly encouraged by
new channels such as the OECD’s Committee Information Service (OLIS) and Clearspace (CS) web
portals. A logit regression model was used to estimate the influence of the government’s supply side policy
tools and organisational factors on the decision to open OLIS and Clearspace accounts. Additionally,
probability analysis conducted to give insights on the usage frequency of information channels. Study used
a dataset that includes 126 Turkish top-level country and municipal government officials working on
different OECD study topics in 2010. Findings imply that the influence of the explanatory variables tested
differ between the two web-portal models. Satisfaction with the timing of information provided by the
OECD Permenant Delegation (timing issues in reaching reports) among officials is the only variable that
consistently has a positive influence on the adoption of both web-portal applications. The probability
analysis show that while duration of employment and degree of expertise increase the probability of use of
online information channels, work duration on OECD topics and meeting participation are the variables
that decrease the probability of use of face to face communication channels.
Ecb working paper 242 public sector efficiency an international comparisonPiet De Pauw
This paper compares the efficiency of the different states. This comparison is relative. States with the highest degree of freedom seem to have the highest efficiency.
The EU is Lebanon's largest trading partner, but political and economic reforms outlined in the EU-Lebanon Action Plan saw slow progress in 2009 due to elections and negotiations to form a government. The EU will provide €150 million from 2011-2013 to support Lebanon's political and economic reforms, as well as recovery efforts, through programs focused on stability, social development, and reinvigorating the economy. Progress on implementing reforms remains important for deepening EU-Lebanon relations and trade agreements.
The document proposes a Core Public Policy Vocabulary (CPPV) to standardize public policy documentation and foster collaboration across government agencies. It presents a conceptual data model for the CPPV containing classes like GuidingFramework, Objectives, Programs, Regulations, and Stakeholders. The CPPV is based on existing ISA core vocabularies and aims to address semantic challenges in comparing and relating policies. An open policy demonstrator portal has been created to showcase applications of the linked, standardized policy representation. Further development includes expert reviews, pilots within policy domains, and demonstators for interoperability scenarios.
From Ugly Duckling to Superstar: how energy efficiency (almost) got to the to...FTI Consulting FR
Energy efficiency has long been promoted at European level. The European Commission has certainly made great efforts to support it and to ensure that energy savings can contribute to the EU’s energy priorities, namely reduction of carbon emissions, lowering of energy costs and increase of energy independence. The EU has introduced energy efficiency targets, created a regulatory framework to support energy efficiency and the uptake of energy efficient products and provided significant funding. However, so far energy efficiency has not lived up to its expectations, which is disappointing considering the huge amount of resources spent to promote it.
In this Energy Flash we look why the EU’s policies have so far have not had the desired effect, what is being done to change this and which sectors are best placed to benefit from the renewed efforts.
Determining relevance of “best practice” based on interoperability in Europea...ePractice.eu
Authors: Robert Deller, Guilloux Véronique.
eGovernment is one of Europe’s big challenges, and interoperability is a necessary condition encouraged by the European Commission. Interoperability is believed to ensure effective service to citizens and to perform governmental functions effectively as well as efficiently.
Benchmarking eGovernment: tools, theory, and practiceePractice.eu
Authors: Cristiano codagnone | Trond Arne Undheim.
This article is the result of more than three years of work and discussion on the issue of eGovernment benchmarking and measurement between the two authors. Codagnone as Project Manager and Undheim as EC Project Officer engaged in an intensive exchange that made the eGovernment Economics Project (eGEP) a ground breaking successful study defining the next phase of benchmarking and measurement of eGovernment at the EU level and in many Member States.
Position paper presentazione in occasione del workshop “USING OPEN DATA: policy modeling, citizen empowerment, data journalism” che si è tenuto il 19 e 20 giugno 2012 a Bruxelles
Benchmarking eGovernment in the Web 2.0 era: what to measure, and howePractice.eu
This document proposes that government transparency of public data should be considered a new flagship goal for eGovernment policy in the era of web 2.0, replacing the previous focus on making government services available online. It argues that transparency of data can drive innovation, expose inefficiencies, and increase accountability in a way that is important for web 2.0 applications and citizen engagement. However, transparency alone may not catalyze large-scale IT investments in government in the same way as previous eGovernment policies. The document puts forward a proposed new methodology for benchmarking transparency by assessing the availability and reusability of 20 key public datasets.
Benchmarking eGovernment in the Web 2.0 era: what to measure, and howosimod
This document proposes that government transparency of public data should be considered a new flagship goal for eGovernment policy in the era of web 2.0, replacing the previous focus on making government services available online. It argues that transparency of data can drive innovation and public participation by enabling citizens to monitor government and reuse public data in new ways using web 2.0 tools. However, it notes that transparency does not require as much technological investment from governments as making services online did. The document then puts forward a proposed new methodology for benchmarking government transparency by assessing the availability and reusability of 20 key public datasets.
Benchmarking E Government In The Web 2.0 Era David Osimoklenihan
This document proposes that transparency of public data should be considered a new flagship initiative for eGovernment policy in the era of web 2.0, in the same way that making services available online was the flagship goal in the previous era. It analyzes why transparency of public data is increasingly important given developments in web 2.0 and open data. It also assesses whether transparency could drive eGovernment investment and policy priorities in the same way as online services did previously. Finally, it puts forward a new method for measuring transparency based on assessing the availability and reusability of 20 types of public data.
Better data for better policies for better indicatorsOpenCoesione
"Better data for better policies for better indicators:
the role of Cohesion policy in Italy"
Seminar on strengthening ESIF policy indicators
Lisbon, 27 October 2014
The paper discusses the current and potential role of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in anchoring economic reforms in the countries of the EU's Eastern Neighbourhood. It claims that it is too early to assess the success of the ENP in this sphere especially given that the actual progress of the ENP agenda has been limited. A review of the empirical evidence on external reform anchors confirms that the ENP shares some features with the EU accession process that has proven to be an effective mechanism supporting major economic, political and social changes in the countries concerned. The eventual ENP economic offer is meaningful and integration with the EU is getting stronger public support in several CIS countries and among their political elites. On the other hand several factors limit the reform anchoring potential of the ENP. This paper offers recommendations on policies that could strengthen this potential.
Authored by: Wojciech Paczynski
Published in 2009
Constructing A Knowledge Economy Composite Indicator With Imprecise Dataronicky
This document discusses constructing a composite indicator for measuring countries' performance in the knowledge-based economy using imprecise data. Some indicators only provide a range of possible values rather than a single value. The authors propose using multiple imputation to generate multiple completed datasets with imputed values for missing data. They then apply a "benefit of the doubt" method to create composite indicator values and confidence intervals based on the multiple imputed datasets in order to incorporate the uncertainty from imprecise data.
This document provides background on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the evolving relationship between the IMF and the European Union (EU). It discusses the IMF's origins, purpose, governance structure, core activities and recent changes resulting from the global financial crisis and European debt crisis. It notes that while the EU's formal representation within the IMF has not changed, the nature of the IMF-EU relationship has strengthened, particularly in the context of "Troika" programs in Eurozone countries. The increased IMF involvement in European affairs has raised questions about transparency, accountability and the future of EU-IMF relations. The document concludes by recommending ways the European Parliament can enhance oversight and dialogue regarding these issues.
Informe "Assessing the Employment and Social Impact of Energy Efficiency" publicado en diciembre de 2015 que analiza la situación del mercado laboral relacionado con la Eficiencia Energética.
This document provides a report on critical raw materials for the EU. It identifies 20 critical raw materials based on an analysis of 54 candidate materials. The critical raw materials have high economic importance for the EU combined with a high risk of supply disruption. Most of the world's supply of raw materials comes from outside the EU, with China being the largest single supplier. The report aims to identify priority actions to ensure secure access to critical raw materials and strengthen EU competitiveness and jobs.
Securing Critical Raw Materials for Europe - Presentation at IMMC Istanbul 2016 Martin Tauber
18th International Metallurgy & Materials Congress was held in the TUYAP Fair, Convention and Congress Center-Beylikdüzü / ISTANBUL between 29 September - 01 October 2016 together with the 18th International Metallurgical and Materials Conference organized by UCTEA the Chamber of Metallurgical and Materials Engineers, is the most comprehensive international event held in Turkey for 45 years which embraces all sectors in this area.Great honour to speak about Critical Raw Materials for Europe and Turkeys role in that. My thanks to the organising committee for the invitation.
This paper explores wage and income disparities in 14 EU member states during 1994–2001 by using the ECHP data. The results reveal that there are noticeable differences in wages across EU countries measured at both gross and net level. There is no evidence for wage convergence across countries over the period, which indicates that if convergence does exists, the process is rather slow. There are remarkable differences in the income levels across 14 EU member states. Within countries, however, income disparities seem to have declined in most cases. By using household-level data it is also possible to estimate a Gini coefficient at the level of the European Union. This enables us to compare income disparities between the United States and the EU. Based on the results, income disparities across households in the European Union are substantially smaller than those in the US.
The Ecoheat4EU project analyzed district heating and cooling (DHC) support policies across 14 European countries. It collected information on existing policies, analyzed their effectiveness, and developed recommendations. Key findings include:
1) Existing policies varied significantly in their effectiveness at supporting DHC due to inconsistencies and a lack of strategic recognition of DHC in energy policies.
2) Common effective support policies included burden measures on fossil fuels, financial support for DHC investments and operations, and strategic recognition of DHC in national energy strategies.
3) The project developed recommendations and roadmaps to strengthen DHC policies in each country and better support the growth of efficient, low-carbon DHC systems.
How advanced are Italian regions in terms of public eServicesLuigi Reggi
The study aims at providing evidence on regional differences in the diffusion of ICT in the public sector in Italy, with a focus on different types of public e-services (eGovernment, eHealth, eEducation and Intelligent Transport Systems). Data are ob-tained by merging four different surveys carried out by Between Co. (2010-11) and Istat - Italy’s National Bureau of Statistics (2009). We pursue a three-fold objective. First, we attempt to overcome the prevailing attitude to consider the various domains of public e-service provision as separate from one another. In other words, measuring the progress of digital government requires a holistic view to capture the wide spectrum of public e-services in different domains (e.g. local and national administrative procedures, transportation, education, etc.) and the different aspects of service provision (not just e-readiness or web interactivity, but also multi-channel availability and take-up). Second, we shall tackle a major drawback of existing statistics and benchmarking studies of public e-services, which are largely based on the count of services provided online, by including more sophisticated indicators both on quality of services offered and back office changes. Third, we develop a sound, open and transparent methodology for constructing a public eServices composite indicator based on OECD/EC-JRC Handbook. This methodology, which incorporates experts opinion into a Data Envelopment Analysis, will allow us to combine data on different e-service categories and on different aspects of their development, and will enable us to define a ranking of Italian regions in terms of ICT adoption and public e-service development.
Adoption of internal web technologies by oecd turkish government officialsijmpict
Use of communication and information channels for the OECD have been increasingly encouraged by
new channels such as the OECD’s Committee Information Service (OLIS) and Clearspace (CS) web
portals. A logit regression model was used to estimate the influence of the government’s supply side policy
tools and organisational factors on the decision to open OLIS and Clearspace accounts. Additionally,
probability analysis conducted to give insights on the usage frequency of information channels. Study used
a dataset that includes 126 Turkish top-level country and municipal government officials working on
different OECD study topics in 2010. Findings imply that the influence of the explanatory variables tested
differ between the two web-portal models. Satisfaction with the timing of information provided by the
OECD Permenant Delegation (timing issues in reaching reports) among officials is the only variable that
consistently has a positive influence on the adoption of both web-portal applications. The probability
analysis show that while duration of employment and degree of expertise increase the probability of use of
online information channels, work duration on OECD topics and meeting participation are the variables
that decrease the probability of use of face to face communication channels.
Ecb working paper 242 public sector efficiency an international comparisonPiet De Pauw
This paper compares the efficiency of the different states. This comparison is relative. States with the highest degree of freedom seem to have the highest efficiency.
The EU is Lebanon's largest trading partner, but political and economic reforms outlined in the EU-Lebanon Action Plan saw slow progress in 2009 due to elections and negotiations to form a government. The EU will provide €150 million from 2011-2013 to support Lebanon's political and economic reforms, as well as recovery efforts, through programs focused on stability, social development, and reinvigorating the economy. Progress on implementing reforms remains important for deepening EU-Lebanon relations and trade agreements.
The document proposes a Core Public Policy Vocabulary (CPPV) to standardize public policy documentation and foster collaboration across government agencies. It presents a conceptual data model for the CPPV containing classes like GuidingFramework, Objectives, Programs, Regulations, and Stakeholders. The CPPV is based on existing ISA core vocabularies and aims to address semantic challenges in comparing and relating policies. An open policy demonstrator portal has been created to showcase applications of the linked, standardized policy representation. Further development includes expert reviews, pilots within policy domains, and demonstators for interoperability scenarios.
From Ugly Duckling to Superstar: how energy efficiency (almost) got to the to...FTI Consulting FR
Energy efficiency has long been promoted at European level. The European Commission has certainly made great efforts to support it and to ensure that energy savings can contribute to the EU’s energy priorities, namely reduction of carbon emissions, lowering of energy costs and increase of energy independence. The EU has introduced energy efficiency targets, created a regulatory framework to support energy efficiency and the uptake of energy efficient products and provided significant funding. However, so far energy efficiency has not lived up to its expectations, which is disappointing considering the huge amount of resources spent to promote it.
In this Energy Flash we look why the EU’s policies have so far have not had the desired effect, what is being done to change this and which sectors are best placed to benefit from the renewed efforts.
Determining relevance of “best practice” based on interoperability in Europea...ePractice.eu
Authors: Robert Deller, Guilloux Véronique.
eGovernment is one of Europe’s big challenges, and interoperability is a necessary condition encouraged by the European Commission. Interoperability is believed to ensure effective service to citizens and to perform governmental functions effectively as well as efficiently.
Benchmarking eGovernment: tools, theory, and practiceePractice.eu
Authors: Cristiano codagnone | Trond Arne Undheim.
This article is the result of more than three years of work and discussion on the issue of eGovernment benchmarking and measurement between the two authors. Codagnone as Project Manager and Undheim as EC Project Officer engaged in an intensive exchange that made the eGovernment Economics Project (eGEP) a ground breaking successful study defining the next phase of benchmarking and measurement of eGovernment at the EU level and in many Member States.
Position paper presentazione in occasione del workshop “USING OPEN DATA: policy modeling, citizen empowerment, data journalism” che si è tenuto il 19 e 20 giugno 2012 a Bruxelles
Benchmarking eGovernment in the Web 2.0 era: what to measure, and howePractice.eu
This document proposes that government transparency of public data should be considered a new flagship goal for eGovernment policy in the era of web 2.0, replacing the previous focus on making government services available online. It argues that transparency of data can drive innovation, expose inefficiencies, and increase accountability in a way that is important for web 2.0 applications and citizen engagement. However, transparency alone may not catalyze large-scale IT investments in government in the same way as previous eGovernment policies. The document puts forward a proposed new methodology for benchmarking transparency by assessing the availability and reusability of 20 key public datasets.
Benchmarking eGovernment in the Web 2.0 era: what to measure, and howosimod
This document proposes that government transparency of public data should be considered a new flagship goal for eGovernment policy in the era of web 2.0, replacing the previous focus on making government services available online. It argues that transparency of data can drive innovation and public participation by enabling citizens to monitor government and reuse public data in new ways using web 2.0 tools. However, it notes that transparency does not require as much technological investment from governments as making services online did. The document then puts forward a proposed new methodology for benchmarking government transparency by assessing the availability and reusability of 20 key public datasets.
Benchmarking E Government In The Web 2.0 Era David Osimoklenihan
This document proposes that transparency of public data should be considered a new flagship initiative for eGovernment policy in the era of web 2.0, in the same way that making services available online was the flagship goal in the previous era. It analyzes why transparency of public data is increasingly important given developments in web 2.0 and open data. It also assesses whether transparency could drive eGovernment investment and policy priorities in the same way as online services did previously. Finally, it puts forward a new method for measuring transparency based on assessing the availability and reusability of 20 types of public data.
Better data for better policies for better indicatorsOpenCoesione
"Better data for better policies for better indicators:
the role of Cohesion policy in Italy"
Seminar on strengthening ESIF policy indicators
Lisbon, 27 October 2014
This document provides an evaluation of the FP7 COOPERATION Specific Programme. The COOPERATION Programme had the largest budget of the four FP7 Specific Programmes and supported international cooperation projects across the EU and beyond in 10 thematic areas related to science and research. The objectives were scientific excellence and transnational cooperation to help create the European Research Area. Over 7,800 grants were awarded to 87,600 participants, with universities and research organizations making up the majority. While the programme was open and attracted many organizations, participation and funding was still concentrated in larger countries and fewer new EU members saw significant involvement. The implementation focused on predefined thematic priorities and calls, with varying degrees of prescription in topics that sometimes limited innovation.
Polityka spójności Unii Europejskiej jest głównym narzędziem modernizacji społecznej
i gospodarczej w państwach Europy Środkowej. Dotyczy to zwłaszcza Polski, która otrzymuje największą pomoc finansową z tego instrumentu spośród wszystkich innych państw członkowskich UE. Celem artykułu jest analiza zmian w polityce spójności pod wpływem kryzysu
w strefie euro oraz ocena tego, w jaki sposób te zmiany mogą wpłynąć na procesy modernizacyjne w najsłabiej rozwijających się państwach UE, a także szerzej – jak wpłyną na sposób
funkcjonowania integracji europejskiej.
The document discusses the role of cities in implementing sustainability policies through the Urban Agenda for the EU (UAEU) and its "green" partnerships. It provides context on climate change goals and frameworks like the Paris Agreement. The EUKN conference addressed how the UAEU partnerships can bring sustainability closer to citizens and how stakeholders can support their actions, to better understand practices and gaps in urban sustainability transitions.
Open Data and the transparency of the lists of beneficiaries of EU Regional P...OpenCoesione
This document discusses open data and transparency regarding lists of beneficiaries of EU regional policy funding. It summarizes the results of surveys conducted in 2010-2012 that evaluated how openly and usefully different EU countries and regions published this funding data. The surveys found three main strategies for publishing the data and that over time more regions/countries shifted towards a balanced approach considering both data openness and usability. Open questions remain regarding factors influencing transparency and how to best promote civic engagement with the data.
Strengthening Cohesion in the EU: the role of Structural Reforms.Robin Huguenot-Noël
Today, we published a new EPC study commissioned by the European Parliament on 'Strengthening Cohesion in the EU: How can Structural Reforms contribute?".
The presentation provides a comprehensive summary of our main findings. The full study (including the Executive Summary) is available at the following link: www.epc.eu/pub_details.php?cat_id=17&pub_id=8772
OpenCoesione: open government on Cohesion Policy in ItalyOpenCoesione
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This document discusses measuring returns on corporate research and development (R&D) spending. It begins by providing context on the European Union's goals to increase R&D spending to boost competitiveness. It then reviews prior literature on measuring R&D returns and discusses challenges in doing so given R&D's characteristics as an intangible investment with high uncertainty. The document outlines some accounting-based approaches to measuring firm-level R&D returns and what relationships might be expected between various performance metrics and R&D intensity. It presents results from estimations of relationships between R&D intensity and accounting measures of performance using US firm data.
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Organisational Solutions for Overcoming Barriers to eGovernment ePractice.eu
Authors: Rebecca Eynon, Helen Margetts
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Ahead of the publication of this year's country recommendations for the European Semester, this paper identifies priorities and modalities for the reform of the Semester so that it becomes a key instrument for operationalising the SDGs and implementing the European Green Deal at Member State level.
Theoretical Background of NIAT written by Jeongwon YoonJeongwon Yoon
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Presentation at IFIP EGOV 2016 Conference. September 5, 2016.
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http://www.iwi.unibe.ch/content/digitale_nachhaltigkeit/veranstaltungen/workshop_on_open_finance_and_participatory_budgeting/index_ger.html
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OpenCoesione
Promoting transparency and civic monitoring on Cohesion Policy
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Telling stories with data the experience of open coesioneLuigi Reggi
The document discusses citizen monitoring of EU-funded projects in Italy through the website opencoesione.gov.it. It presents summaries of three case studies: environmental projects near an ILVA steel plant, combating organized crime through reusing confiscated assets in Ottaviano, and local transportation in Sassari. All projects were financed by EU regional policy and involve citizens telling the story of the projects and analyzing data. The website uses a shared toolkit to facilitate citizen monitoring and evaluation of how funds are used. Active involvement of local groups is important to track project results and provide feedback.
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Introduction of Cybersecurity with OSS at Code Europe 2024
Benchmarking open data availability across europe the case of eu structural funds
1. Benchmarking Open Data Availability across Europe:
The Case of EU Structural Funds
Although Open Government, Government 2.0 and Open Luigi Reggi
Government Data have been at the centre of the debate Department for
on e-Government policy over the last two years, the Development and
European Union still lacks comparable data on transparency. Economic Cohesion,
European Regional Policy is the ideal context to test a Italian Ministry
Benchmarking 2.0: it involves all Member States and EU of Economic
Development
regions, influences national and regional policies and can
push the transparency agenda in those areas of Europe where
administrative culture and capacity is traditionally low.
In this paper the datasets on beneficiaries of European Structural Keywords
Funds provided by the Managing Authorities of the Operational European Structural Funds,
Programmes of EU27 are evaluated through a scheme based regional policy, benchmarking,
on the 8 principles of Open Government Data. The paper government transparency, open
compares the performance of the European Countries for the government data, methodology,
first time and sets new targets that could be considered as method, evaluation
possible requirements for the next programming period.
The results of this web-
based survey show that
Disclaimer: the European Cohesion
Policy is only halfway to
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and, accomplishing a paradigm
in particular, do not necessarily reflect those of the Ministry of shift to open data, with
differences in performance
Economic Development. both between and - in some
cases - within European
Countries.
European Journal of ePractice · www.epracticejournal.eu
Nº 12 · March/April 2011 · ISSN: 1988-625X 1
2. 1. Introduction
1.1 Benchmarking Government 2.0: from e-Government interactivity to
open data availability
More than two years ago, in this journal, David Osimo raised the question of how to benchmark
e-Government in the web 2.0 era. After having analysed the traditional e-Government benchmarking
method adopted at European level, he identified transparency as a flagship initiative for e-Government
policy and Open Government Data (OGD) availability as the way to measure it (Osimo, 2008). Since
then, the debate on the so-called ‘Government 2.0’ has rapidly evolved and the “2.0” meme has
risen from obscurity to mainstream in e-Government policy (Osimo, 2010b).
The new European e-Government Action Plan 2011-2015 (European Commission, 2010c) highlights
the two main sources of potential benefits of Government 2.0: transparency and data re-use. The
former is a direct effect of opening up data and information on government decision making, such as
laws and regulations, policies and finance. The latter, which implies a call for “raw data” (Robinson
et al., 2010; Berners-Lee, 2006), focuses on the creation of value by combining data from different
sources and making “mash-ups” and new applications, both for commercial and non-commercial
purposes. The economic value generated by the exploitation of Public Sector Information (PSI) by
the public and private sector is estimated as being significant by several studies (see among others
Pollock, 2009; Dekkers et al., 2006).
Although these topics are at the centre of the current debate on e-Government policy, the need
to develop and test new methodologies to benchmark open data availability among the Member
States of the European Union remains largely unsatisfied. The new edition of the well-established
supply side benchmarking exercise confirms the importance of updating and expanding the scope of
the analysis by including new metrics on “Transparent and Open Government” (Capgemini, 2010,
134). Since traditional rankings on online services availability and sophistication can play a role in
giving an impulse to countries still engaged in developing digital infrastructures and delivering their
basic public services online (Reggi, 2009), new indicators on transparency should be introduced in a
seamless way, while maintaining core indicators and comparability of datasets over time.
Osimo (2008) proposes a list of “basic public data” to be measured at EU level. The first in the list
is “beneficiaries of public funding”, which includes the beneficiaries of European Structural Funds.
Regional policy is in fact the second biggest item in the EU budget after agriculture - it absorbs
approximately one third of the total budget - and, moreover, it forces each Member State to share the
same rules and regulations, which can improve the comparability of data. Beneficiaries of Regional
Policy could indeed represent an interesting testing domain for a new open data benchmarking.
As shown in more detail in Section 3, though, the surveys commissioned in the last two years by
the European Parliament and the European Commission were either too early (carried out when the
2007-13 period implementation was in its early phase) or focused mainly on qualitative information
rather than on quantitative and comparable data.
The aim of this paper is therefore to provide an objective, web-based benchmarking of the publicly
available data on projects and beneficiaries of the 2007-13 Structural Funds across Europe. The
methodology and the results of this test (see Sections 4 and 5 respectively) could represent a
methodological basis for an extended benchmarking exercise that should include other kinds of data
from European Policies such as the beneficiaries of the Common Agricultural Policy.
European Journal of ePractice · www.epracticejournal.eu
Nº 12 · March/April 2011 · ISSN: 1988-625X 2
3. 2. The Regional Policy and the European Transparency Initiative
European Regional Policy (otherwise named European Cohesion Policy) “aims to promote harmonious
development of the Union and its regions by reducing regional disparities” (Article 174 of the
Treaty).
The policy “underpins the growth model of the Europe 2020 strategy including the need to respond
to societal and employment challenges all Member States and regions face. [...] The multilevel
governance system for the policy helps to make the EU more visible to its citizens” (European
Commission, 2010a). The role of Structural Funds in financing the Europe 2020 strategy is in fact
more and more significant (European Commission, 2010b).
Regional policy is implemented mostly thanks to two Structural funds, namely the European Regional
Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Social Fund (ESF). ERDF is aimed at levelling economic
differences among regions and it finances, for example, initiatives for research and innovation, local
development and employment, infrastructure, and protection and improvement of the environment.
ESF was established to improve the quality and accessibility of jobs and employment opportunities
within the European Union.
The amount of Community resources dedicated to Regional Policy in 2007-13 is EUR 347 billion
(European Commission, 2008), 3.75% of which is dedicated to ICT and Information Society (European
Commission, 2007). It constitutes the second largest item in the Community budget after agriculture.
Financial resources are concentrated on the lagging regions that fall under the Convergence
objective, with 81.5% of the investment available. The declared rationale of the Convergence
objective is to promote growth-enhancing conditions and factors. Outside the Convergence regions,
the Regional Competitiveness and Employment objective (Competitiveness) aims at strengthening
competitiveness and attractiveness, as well as employment, especially through innovation and the
promotion of the knowledge society. The European Regional Cooperation objective (Cooperation)
strengthens cross-border co-operation through joint local and regional initiatives, trans-national co-
operation and interregional co-operation and exchange of experience.
In addition to the Community financing, substantial national and regional budgets are mobilised,
which must conform to EU rules and regulations. One of the goals of the Regional Policy is in fact to
improve the quality of national and regional policies and to strengthen administrative capacity in the
disadvantaged regions (see for example Bache, 2008; Baum & Marek, 2008; Barca, 2009).
Such a positive influence on national and regional policies could be leveraged also to foster
transparency across Europe.
Structural Funds regulations for the 2007-13 programming period require the Managing Authorities
(Member States and Regions managing an Operational Programme financed by Structural Funds) to
publish the names of the beneficiaries, the name of the project co-financed with Structural Funds
and the corresponding amount of public funding received. In fact, according to Article 69 of the
Council Regulation No 1083/2006 of 11 July 2006 and repealing Regulation (No 1260/1999), “the
Member States and the Managing Authority for the operational programme shall provide information
on and publicise operations and co-financed programmes. The information shall be addressed to
European Union citizens and beneficiaries with the aim of highlighting the role of the Community
and ensuring that assistance from the Funds is transparent”. In particular, Commission Regulation
No 1828/2006 of 8 December 2006 (art. 7) states that “the managing authority shall be responsible
for organising the publication, electronically or otherwise, of the list of beneficiaries, the names of
the operations and the amount of public funding allocated to the operations”.
European Journal of ePractice · www.epracticejournal.eu
Nº 12 · March/April 2011 · ISSN: 1988-625X 3
4. Moreover, in November 2005 the European Commission launched a ‘European Transparency
Initiative’, which is promoted and implemented through different regulatory texts and documents
aiming at increasing financial accountability and strengthening personal integrity and institutional
independence.
A Green Paper presented by the Commission on 3 May 2006 identifies the four main components of the
ETI in (1) the public access to documents, (2) the rules and standards on professional ethics of public
office holders in the European institutions, (3) the lobbying transparency and (4) the information on
beneficiaries of EU funds.
In 2008 the Commission provided guidance to Member States on the practical implications of
implementing the Transparency Initiative with a detailed Guidance Note that the European
Commission and Member States agreed on in the COCOF of 23 April 2008 (European Commission,
2008b). The note commits to the Commission the coordinating role of facilitating access to the data
available on the websites of the managing authorities and proposes a common standard for the
publication of data, so as to enable interested parties to carry out consistent analyses across the
EU. Although the set of minimum information is still relatively small and should be extended, the
European Transparency Initiative certainly represents a breakthrough innovation in the way most
European Countries implement public policy.
An “indicative table for setting the list of beneficiaries of EU funding” is annexed, focusing on 6
main standard designators of the database fields that should be included:
1. The name of beneficiaries (defined by Article 2 of the Council Regulation No 1083/06 as
“operator, body or firm, whether public or private, responsible for initiating and implementing
operations. In the context of aid schemes under Article 87 of the Treaty, beneficiaries are
public or private firms carrying out an individual project and receiving public aid”).
2. The name of the operation (defined as “a project or group of projects selected by the managing
authority of the operational programme concerned or under its responsibility according to
criteria laid down by the monitoring committee and implemented by one or more beneficiaries
allowing achievement of the goals of the priority axis to which it relates”).
3. The amount of public funding committed to the operation.
4. The amount of public funding paid to the beneficiary at the end of the operation.
5. The year of final payment.
6. The date of the last update.
3. Previous studies evaluating the lists of beneficiaries of Structural
Funds
Two reports recently commissioned by European Institutions have dealt with the evaluation of existing
data on projects and beneficiaries of European Structural Funds in the 2007-13 programming period.
The first study was funded by the European Parliament’s Committee on Regional Development and
presented in July 2010, though it was completed in June 2008, only one year after the beginning
of the 2007-13 period (CSIL, 2008). The report, entitled “The Data Transparency Initiative and its
Impact on Cohesion Policy”, evaluates the implementation of the European Transparency Initiative
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Nº 12 · March/April 2011 · ISSN: 1988-625X 4
5. by providing some quantitative data and four case studies about Finland, Italy, the Netherlands and
Poland.
The situation reported, mainly due to the very early phase of policy implementation, “results
in incomparable, often not machine readable and in some countries almost unusable data
in different EU languages and different currencies”. Only 78% of the European regions
managing an ERDF operational programme provide the minimum information required. 19%
provide a description of the operations, 41% a location of the projects, 27% the amount
of national co-funding. Moreover, while 44% of EU regions publish data on the total amount of
funding, only 32% of available datasets specify the amount of public money actually paid out.
PDF is the prevailing format in which data are released (52%), followed by XLS (27%) and HTML (21%);
a situation that had not changed almost two years later (Reggi, 2010).
The report draws some final recommendations:
• to provide additional essential information, such as contact details, localisation, project
summaries, description of project partners, etc.
• to make databases fully searchable and compatible, so as to make possible an EU-wide outlook
of the data.
• to describe the data in English and not only in the local language.
The second report - “Study on the quality of websites containing lists of beneficiaries of EU Structural
Funds” by Technopolis Group - was funded by the DG Regional Policy of the European Commission
(Technopolis Group, 2010). The study adopted mainly qualitative methods in answering its evaluation
questions, and data are collected through a series of interviews and an online questionnaire.
The interviews addressed the questions of comparability and compatibility of data across the Member
States and regions and concludes with a review of the technical approaches to the presentation of
information.
Table 1 - Member state approaches in publishing data on beneficiaries of Structural Funds
Centralised / national approach Regional / decentralised approach
Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Ireland, Italy,
Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, United Kingdom
Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden
Source: Technopolis Group, 2010.
The study also classifies the Member States in two groups: countries following a centralised approach,
which have developed centralised information systems resulting in one shared publicly available
dataset, and countries following a regional approach, which implies decentralised and fragmented
databases.
4. Methodology and data collection
A web-based survey was conducted in October 2010 in order to explore the availability and quality
of the lists of projects and beneficiaries of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the
European Social Fund (ESF) published by the managing authorities.
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6. Table 2: Operational programmes analysed by objective, fund, regional scope, type of information system
used and Member State
Regional objective* Fund Nat / reg Info system
National or multireg.
Not centralized
Convergence
Cooperation
Centralized
All Operational
Regional
Comp.
ERDF
Programmes
ESF
BG 7 - - 5 2 7 - - 7 7
BE 2 8 - 4 6 1 9 - 10 10
CZ 15 2 - 14 3 8 9 17 - 17
DK - 2 - 1 1 2 - 2 - 2
DE 14 22 - 18 18 1 35 - 36 36
EE 3 - - 2 1 3 - 3 - 3
GR 14 - - 10 4 5 9 14 - 14
ES 23 22 - 23 22 7 38 45 - 45
FR 9 27 - 31 5 5 30 36 - 36
IE - 3 - 2 1 1 2 - 3 3
IT 19 33 - 28 24 9 43 - 52 52
CY 1 1 - 1 1 2 - 2 - 2
LV 3 - - 2 1 3 - - 3 3
LT 4 - - 2 2 4 - 4 - 4
LU - 2 - 1 1 2 - 2 - 2
HU 14 1 - 13 2 8 7 15 - 15
MT 2 - - 1 1 2 - 2 - 2
NL - 5 - 4 1 5 - - 5 5
AT 2 9 - 9 2 1 10 - 11 11
PL 21 - - 20 1 5 16 21 - 21
PT 11 3 - 10 4 7 7 - 14 14
RO 7 - - 5 2 7 - 7 - 7
SI 3 - - 2 1 3 - 3 - 3
SK 10 1 - 9 2 9 2 11 - 11
FI - 7 - 5 2 - 7 7 - 7
SE - 9 - 8 1 1 8 9 - 9
UK 6 16 - 16 6 - 22 - 22 22
Cross-border
- - 54 54 - - - - 54 54
cooperation
Interreg
- - 3 3 - - - - 3 3
cooperation
Trans-national
- - 14 14 - - - - 14 14
cooperation
Total 190 173 71 317 117 108 254 200 234 434
* Programmes belonging to both Convergence and Competitiveness objectives are classified into Convergence objective
Source: Author’s elaboration based on European Commission - DG Regional Policy data (June 2009)
The survey is based on the official database on the approved Operational Programmes provided by
the DG Regional Policy in June 2009. All the 434 Programmes approved at that time were taken into
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Nº 12 · March/April 2011 · ISSN: 1988-625X 6
7. account1. As showed in Table 2, the programmes are classified into various categories depending
on the objective (Convergence, Regional Competitiveness and Employment, European Regional
Cooperation), the fund (European Regional Development Fund, European Social Fund) and the regional
scale (National or Multi-regional, Regional). The studies on the lists of beneficiaries of structural
funds mentioned before helped classify the programmes also by type of information system used
(centralised, decentralised). Programmes with regional cooperation objectives, by definition, involve
more than one Member State, and therefore could not be connected to any particular country.
Datasets published on the web were identified through a visit to the URIs indicated by the managing
authorities and reported in the Inforegio2 web site (managed by the DG Regional Policy of the European
Commission) or in the web site of the European Social Fund3 (managed by the DG Employment). When
the link was broken or unavailable, a search in the websites of regional operational programmes and
of regional managing authorities was performed.
Transparency of every single operational programme is assessed against a 4-stage model reflecting
the quality of data provided. Stage models have been widely used in the literature to define a sort of
evolutionary path toward excellence in service delivery, within both an “e-Government” (Capgemini,
2009; United Nations, 2010, Baum & Di Maio, 2000; Layne & Lee, 2001; Andersen & Henriksen, 2006)
and “Goverment 2.0” (Osimo, 2008; Johnson, 2010) paradigm.
In order to analyse the datasets from an open data perspective, the eight principles of Open
Government Data are considered as evaluation variables (Open Government Working Group,
2007). These principles were developed by 30 Open Government advocates4 during a meeting
in Sebastopol, California on 7-8 December, 2007, coordinated by Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media
and Carl Malamud of Public.Resource.Org. The group suggested eight desirable properties for
government data that, if implemented, “would empower the public’s use of government-held data”.
These eight principles are now considered as a worldwide de facto standard for open data evaluation
and are cited as a key reference by practitioners and academics in policy discussions as well as in the
top academic journals in the field (Davies, 2010; Osimo, 2010a; Bertot et al, 2009; Johnson, 2010).
They are identified as follows5:
1. Complete - All public data are made available. Public data are data that are not subject to valid
privacy, security or privilege limitations
2. Primary - Data are as collected at the source, with the highest possible level of granularity, not
in aggregate or modified forms
3. Timely - Data are made available as quickly as necessary to preserve the value of the data
4. Accessible - Data are available to the widest range of users for the widest range of purposes
5. Machine processable - Data are reasonably structured to allow automated processing.
6. Non-discriminatory - Data are available to anyone, with no requirement of registration.
7. Non-proprietary - Data are available in a format over which no entity has exclusive control
8. License-free - Data are not subject to any copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret
regulation. Reasonable privacy, security and privilege restrictions may be allowed.
1 A list of operational programmes can be found at http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/country/prordn/index_en.cfm
2 http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/country/commu/beneficiaries/index_en.htm
3 http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/esf/discover/article_7093_en.htm
4 A list of the 30 OGD advocates can be found at http://public.resource.org/open_government_meeting.html
5 See also the additional notes: http://www.opengovdata.org/home/8principles/annotations
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8. The definition of the 4 stages for each principle (see Table 3) is mainly based on the W3C and UK
Central Office of Information guidelines. For each principle a score is attributed as follows:
Stage 0 = 0%
Stage 1 = 33%
Stage 2 = 66%
Stage 3 = 100%
A composite indicator measuring the overall quality of each Operational Programme is obtained as a
simple mean of the scores attributed to the 8 principles.
Table 3: Evaluation scheme and description of the stages
Principle Description Stage 0 (0%) Stage 1 (33%) Stage 2 (66%) Stage 3 (100%)
1 Complete All public data are Data not available Low completeness: Good High
made available. presence completeness: completeness: ETI
Public data are of project, all European recommendations
data that are not beneficiary and Transparency met + detail for
subject to valid total cost of the Initiative (ETI) EU or other kind of
privacy, security project recommendations co-financing funds
or privilege are met and status of the
limitations. project provided.
2 Primary Data are as Data not available Low granularity: - High granularity:
collected at the aggregated data information
source, with the available for each
highest possible beneficiary (raw
level of granularity, data)
not in aggregate or
modified forms.
3 Timely Data are made No info on update - Day or month of Information on
available as quickly the last update is the frequency of
as necessary to provided update is provided
preserve the value
of the data.
4 Accessible Data are available No accessibility: Low accessibility: Good accessibility: High accessibility:
to the widest range broken link to the the link from DB available by 3 good description
of users for the DB from Inforegio Inforegio or ESF clicks from the HP. of the data or
widest range of or ESF websites, websites is correct metadata is
purposes. no description provided. The DB
provided is located by 3
clicks from the
HP. Columns are
translated into
English.
5 Machine Data are Not machine- Machine- Data interchange Linked data: RDF
processable reasonably processabile processable format: XML, JSON
structured to format: PDF, DOC, format: CSV, HTML,
allow automated results displayed in XLS, ODT
processing. “HTML reports”
6 Non- Data are available Requirement of Requirement of - Non-discriminatory:
discriminatory to anyone, with registration and registration and no requirement of
no requirement of approval download for registration
registration. everyone
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9. Principle Description Stage 0 (0%) Stage 1 (33%) Stage 2 (66%) Stage 3 (100%)
7 Non- Data are available Proprietary - - Open formats and
proprietary in a format over formats: XLS, DOC standard formats:
which no entity has CSV, RDF, XML
exclusive control.
8 License-free Data are not Not license-free: No license - Licence is
subject to any data are subject to specified. Terms of compatible with
copyright, patent, copyright, patent, use as given in law Creative commons
trademark or trade trademark or trade (by and reuse
secret regulation. secret regulation for commercial)
Reasonable or Open data
privacy, security commons
and privilege
restrictions may be
allowed.
5. Results
Table 4: Average scores of the Operational Programmes of EU27, by objective, fund, regional scope and type
of information system used
discriminatory
performance
License-free
processable
proprietary
Accessible
Complete
Machine
Primary
Overall
Timely
Non-
Non-
Regional
objective
I - Convergence
49.6% 48.7% 92.1% 54.3% 53.2% 15.1% 100.0% 0.5% 33.0%
(n=190)
II -
Competitiveness 48.6% 40.5% 91.3% 54.1% 54.3% 11.4% 100.0% 4.0% 33.0%
(n=173)
III - Cooperation
46.3% 28.8% 76.5% 62.3% 65.5% 4.2% 100.0% 0.0% 33.0%
(n=71)
One way
ANOVA test 2.34* 18.86*** 9.04*** 2.08 4.37** 13.07*** - 3.94** -
(F value)
Bonferroni test I > II: 0.01 I > II: 0.08*** I > II: 0.007 I > II: 0.002 I > II: -0.011 I > II: 0.03* I > II: -0.03**
(F value)
I > III: 0.03* I > III: 0.19*** I > III: 0.15*** I > III: -0.07 I > III: -0.12** I > III: 0.1*** I > III: 0.005
II > III: 0.42 II > III: 0.11*** II > III: 0.14*** II > III: -0.08 II > III: -0.11** II > III: 0.07*** II > III: 0.04**
Fund
ERDF (n=317) 49.3% 42.5% 88.0% 59.8% 56.6% 13.0% 100.0% 1.9% 33.0%
ESF (n=117) 46.8% 41.2% 92.6% 44.0% 53.1% 8.7% 100.0% 1.7% 33.0%
t-test
-2.130*** -0.473 1.511* -4.881*** -1.018 -2.504*** - -0.125 -
(t value)
Regional
scope
National or
multireg. 48.3% 47.3% 87.6% 53.3% 50.3% 14.7% 100.0% 0.0% 33.0%
(n=108)
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10. discriminatory
performance
License-free
processable
proprietary
Accessible
Complete
Machine
Primary
Overall
Timely
Non-
Non-
Regional
49.5% 43.9% 93.8% 54.6% 55.1% 12.9% 100.0% 3.1% 33.0%
(n=254)
t-test
1.046 -1.193 2.294*** 0.336 1.456* -0.967 - 1.868** -
(t value)
Information
system
Centralised
52.1% 47.6% 98.8% 52.3% 61.4% 19.8% 100.0% 3.5% 33.0%
(n=200)
Not centralised
45.8% 37.5% 81.0% 58.3% 50.7% 5.1% 100.0% 0.4% 33.0%
(n=234)
t-test
-6.160*** -4.311*** -6.931*** 2.011** -3.589*** -10.873*** - -2.382*** -
(t value)
All
Operational 48.7% 42.2% 89.2% 55.5% 55.6% 11.9% 100.0% 1.8% 33.0%
Programmes
* Significant at 10% level. ** Significant at 5% level. *** Significant at 1% level
Bonferroni, Scheffe and Sidak tests provided the same results in terms of significance
First of all, findings suggest that European Cohesion Policy is only halfway to accomplishing
a paradigm shift to open data, which is ideally correspondent to the 100% score.
The overall performance of all Operational Programmes (48.7%) is mainly driven by Non-discriminatory
(100%) and Primary (89.2%) principles, which make a major contribution to the average score. This
could be considered a direct effect of the current regulations of Structural Funds. In fact, the provision
of the highest possible level of granularity (project and beneficiary) is one of the requirements of
regulations, while the publication without restrictions could also be interpreted as mandatory. On
the contrary, the aspects not covered either by regulations or the European Transparency Initiative
show very low results; this is the case of the format in which data are published (Machine-processable
and Non-proprietary are the principles with the lowest values, 11.9% and 1.8% respectively).
These findings seem to imply that managing authorities of the programmes are more interested in
formally meeting the requirements of the regulation than pursuing real transparency.
Considering the variation among the different categories, we first notice that, on average, programmes
belonging to the Convergence and Competitiveness objectives show higher scores on overall quality
(49.2% and 48.6% respectively) than those belonging to the Cooperation objective (46.3%)6. A
statistically significant difference emerges between the programmes funded by European Regional
Development Fund (49.3%) and by European Social Fund (46.8%), while no significant variation is
found between Regional and National or Multiregional Programmes.
A considerable difference (t value is significant at 1% level) in performance is shown when comparing
datasets that are shared and centralised at national level (52.1%) with those which are managed by
a single regional authority (45.8%). This variation is also statistically significant with regard to all the
indicators examined, and is probably due to the fact that a centrally managed programme has the
advantage that information flows are easier to manage and local actions are more easily coordinated.
6 Bonferroni, Scheffe and Sidak tests (Hochberg & Tamhane, 1987), which all provide the same results, indicate that the
only statistically significant difference in overall performance is between the average scores of the Convergence and
the Cooperation objectives.
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11. With regard to the Non-discriminatory and Licence-free principles, all Operational Programmes obtain
the same scores. Every dataset in EU27 is publicly available with no requirement for registration,
and a licence is never specified. On the contrary, the principles Complete and Machine processable
show the highest variance and, as already said, are quite important in explaining the variation of the
overall performance.
On average, the completeness of information provided is 42.2%, far below the 66% level (stage 2),
which means that the ETI requirements are still far from being met.
The two principles Machine processable and Non proprietary seem even more urgent to be applied.
The way data are formatted and delivered makes a big difference. Government-produced reports,
charts, and analyses can be very valuable, but “it is essential to also publish the underlying data itself
in a computer-friendly format that makes it easy for the vibrant community of civic technologists
to make and share a broad range of tools for public engagement” (Robinson, Yu and Felten, 2010).
For now, the situation is rather discouraging, with results showing very low scores for both principles
(11.9% for Machine processable and 1.8% for Non proprietary). PDF is by far the most common
format in which data is published, followed by XLS and DOC, while none of the programmes use data
interchange formats such as XML or linked data formats such as RDF (Berners-Lee, 2006). The only
open format actually used is CSV. This implies that data publicly available on Structural Funds are
not really “open data” as commonly defined (see for example the Open Knowledge Definition7 and
Chernoff, 2010).
Better results are shown regarding the Primary principle. Most of the information on beneficiaries is
presented at the highest level of disaggregation (that is, the beneficiary of funding), as required by
the regulation. Otherwise, the information is provided in aggregated tables, which, by the way, can
hardly be defined “lists of beneficiaries”.
As for the Timely principle, it is quite common to find information on the day or month of last
update as recommended by the European Transparency Initiative (stage 2). However, the stage 3
(declaration of the update frequency) is almost never reached.
Graph 1 - Average scores and standard deviation of the Operational Programmes of EU27 (Cooperation
objective not included), by Member State
100
90
80
70
71 71
67
60
58 58
% 50 53
EU27 Average
50 50 50 48 48 46
40 44 44 44 44 42 42 42 41 41 41 40
37 37
30
29
20 25
10
0
CZ FI HU CY SK FR RO LT DE ES IT GR UK BG AT LU SI SE PL PT BE NL IR EE MT DK LV
(n=17)(7) (15) (2) (11) (36) (7) (4) (36) (45) (52) (14) (22) (7) (11) (2) (3) (9) (21) (14) (10) (5) (3) (3) (2) (2) (3)
Countries
7 http://www.opendefinition.org/okd/
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Nº 12 · March/April 2011 · ISSN: 1988-625X 11
12. Finally, the results show a considerable variation in the overall quality of data among Member States.
Best performing countries such as the Czech Republic and Finland obtain a score of 71%, while the
worst performing Member State is Latvia with 25%.
It is worth noting that countries from the eastern Europe often appear in the first half of the chart.
A possible explanation for this may rest in the specific actions and positive influence that the DG
Regional Policy of the European Commission has exerted on these countries during the last few years
in the official Monitoring Committees.
The chart also illustrates the disparities within the Member States by showing the standard deviation
of the scores obtained by each country. As explained before, the variation equals zero in presence of
an integrated information system at the national level. Portugal shows the highest dispersion from
the average (13.5%), followed by the United Kingdom (10.5%), Bulgaria (9.6%) and Italy (8.9%).
7. Conclusions and policy recommendations
This empirical study, based on indications of previous studies and on existing evaluation schemes, is
the first attempt to compare transparency of the Cohesion Policy across Europe and could represent
a first step in developing a new European benchmarking framework aimed at comparing European
countries in terms of the availability and quality of Open Government Data provided.
Structural Funds are the ideal context for testing a new methodology for Open Government Data
evaluation because they involve all Member States and regions with common rules and regulations
and influence national and regional policies and strategies, and so they play a pivotal role in spreading
the administrative culture of transparency and openness across Europe.
The results of this web-based survey show that the European Cohesion Policy is only halfway to
accomplishing a paradigm shift to open data, with differences in performance both between and – in
some cases - within European countries.
Low scores are attributed to the formats the authorities are choosing when publishing their data
on the web, while other indicators such as the level of granularity are positively influenced by the
requirements of current regulations.
The use of open, machine-processable and linked-data formats have unexpected advantages in terms
of transparency and re-use of the data by the public and private sector. These aspects are already
highlighted in the current e-Government Action Plan, in the European Directive on the re-use of
Public Sector Information and in the Open Government policies that are being implemented in many
OECD Countries around the world.
The application of these technical principles does not need extra budget or major changes in
government organisation and information management; nor does it require the update of existing
software and infrastructures. What is needed today is the promotion among national and local
authorities of the culture of transparency and the raising of awareness of the benefits that could
derive from opening up existing data and information in a re-usable way.
As demonstrated, in Cohesion Policy implementation a key role is played by the regulations and the
consequent actions that the European Commission or the national authorities should put in place.
In this regard, the evaluation scheme proposed sets of specific targets in terms of quality, openness
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Nº 12 · March/April 2011 · ISSN: 1988-625X 12
13. and completeness that could be considered as possible requirements for the next funding period. For
example, Managing Authorities of Structural Funds should:
• use only open and machine-processable formats. In particular, the linked data paradigm should
be adopted
• provide a comprehensive description of the data including information on the frequency of
update
• improve the data accessibility by sharing it with other administrations so as to develop new and
larger data-sets enabling direct comparisons between countries.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Chiara Assunta Ricci for her contribution to the data collection. I also thank
Gianfranco Andriola, Sergio Scicchitano and David Osimo for their useful comments on a previous
version of this paper.
Furthermore, I am grateful to the referee for the careful review and the valuable suggestions that
helped improve the paper.
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Author
Luigi Reggi
Department for Development and Economic Cohesion,
Italian Ministry of Economic Development
luigi.reggi@gmail.com
http://www.epractice.eu/en/people/157670
European Journal of ePractice · www.epracticejournal.eu
Nº 12 · March/April 2011 · ISSN: 1988-625X 15