In an increasingly interdependent, unstable and complex world, as the financial crisis has shown, policy-makers lack the tools to anticipate emerging problems and the impact of possible solutions. At the same time, citizens are becoming more vocal in monitoring and influencing policy decisions. Emerging ICT tools for governance and policy modelling show great opportunities for decision-making in a complex world, through the dramatic and combined growth of data availability, analysis and simulation tools, participative and behavioural change technologies. However, they still remain at the margins of policy-making: research and deployment are fragmented between academic fields, policy domains, geographical areas, technological layers and type of stakeholders. As a result, resources are spent in «reinventing the wheel» and reach sub-optimal efficiency and effectiveness.
The CROSSOVER project aimed to consolidate and expand the existing community (built largely within FP7) by:
- bringing together and reinforcing the links between the different global communities of researchers and experts: it created directories of experts and solutions, and animated knowledge exchange across communities of practice both offline and online;
- reaching out and raising the awareness of non-experts and potential users, with special regard to high-level policy-makers and policy advisors: it produced multimedia content, detailed case studies, roadmap, workshops and high-level policy conference with competition for prize;
- establishing the scientific and political basis for long-lasting interest and commitment to next generation policy-making, beyond the mere availability of FP7 funding: it focused on use cases and a demand-driven approach, involving policy-makers and advisors in high-level conference
It pursued this goal through a combination of content production, ad hoc and well-designed online and offline animation; as well as strong links with existing communities outside the CROSSOVER project and outside the realm of eGovernment.
