by Stefaan Verhulst, Andrew J. Zahuranec —
November 29, 2018
Four Shifts and Innovations in Sharing and Leveraging Private Assets and Expertise for the Public Good
For years, public-private partnerships (PPPs) have promised to help governments do more for less. Yet, the discussion and experimentation surrounding PPPs often focus on outdated models and narratives, and the field of experimentation has not fully embraced the opportunities provided by an increasingly networked and data-rich private sector.
Private-sector actors (including businesses and ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
September 21, 2018
Yesterday saw the launch of the “Future of Democracy” Lecture Series – co-organized by The GovLab and the Institute for Public Knowledge – with Network chair Beth Simone Noveck in conversation with Audrey Tang, Digital Minister, and leader of Social Innovation for Taiwan. The discussion – “Government by the People, with the People: How g0v.tw is Transforming gov.tw, Four Years after the Sunflower Occupy Movement” – explored civic technology, and how new forms citizen participation, deliberati...Read More
by Andrew Young —
September 14, 2018
In a recent post for The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog, Henry Farrell interviewed cryptographer and computer scientist Bruce Schneier about his new book Click Here to Kill Everybody. Farrell focuses the interview on questions related to security risks associated with the increasing prevalence of internet-connected devices around the house (i.e., the Internet of Things), as well as the implications of those risks on politics and policy.
One exchange in particular focuses on government’s ...Read More
by Andrew J. Zahuranec —
September 14, 2018
The German government is looking for advise on digitalization and, earlier this month, it called on the expertise of Network Chair Beth Simone Noveck as part of that effort. Together with nine internationally-recognized experts from academia, research, and the private-sector, Noveck joined Germany’s new Digital Council. The body will help the government take advantage of the opportunities offered by new technological developments.
From the press release:
“The Digital Council will in future ...Read More
by Andrew J. Zahuranec —
August 31, 2018
Earlier this month, the National Science Foundation awarded a $10,000 grant to researchers at Arizona State University (ASU) to investigate information inequalities. Network member Erik Johnston will act as the principal investigator for the project.
Using data from Boston, Massachusetts’s 311 non-emergency reporting system, Johnston’s team will build a tool to understand how people use civic technologies. Research will take place in three stages. First, the project will combine six years of...Read More
by Andrew J. Zahuranec —
August 31, 2018
Earlier this month, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy announced that Network Chair Beth Simone Noveck accepted an offer to serve as the state’s first Chief Innovation Officer. Drawing on her deep expertise applying data, technology, and innovative thinking to institutions, Noveck will promote effective governance and opportunity across her home state. The new position will allow the state to better think about how it can engage with its citizens.
From the story:
“Governor Phil Murphy, who mad...Read More
by Andrew J. Zahuranec —
August 31, 2018
In a continuing collaboration between Slate, Arizona State University, and the New America Foundation, associate Network member Hollie Russon-Gilman co-authored an essay on the dangers of surveillance technology. The piece notes China’s increasing use of technology to control its citizens. China’s leaders might have used slow and costly informant networks in the past, but now the country’s leadership can rely on a robust suite of technologies that allow it to track and identify thousands of p...Read More
by Andrew Young —
August 08, 2018
Global Policy Platform Apolitical Honors The Governance Lab Founders Beth Simone Noveck and Stefaan Verhulst and Creator of the World Wide Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee
BROOKLYN, New York, Wednesday, August 8, 2018 – Governance innovation advocates Beth Simone Noveck and Stefaan Verhulst, the founding directors of The Governance Lab (GovLab) at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering, and creator of the World Wide Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee have been named by global policy platform Apoli...Read More
by Olivia Clark —
July 13, 2018
Network member and Nesta CEO Geoff Mulgan provided keynote remarks at a strategy discussion event for the Public Innovation Team (EiP) in the Colombian National Planning Department (DNP) in Bogotá this week. The event, “Experiment to transform: towards the next generation of public innovation,” was organized to allow Nesta to present a new national public innovation strategy for Colombia.
The event hosted representatives from innovation initiatives in several different countries and promoted...Read More
by Olivia Clark —
July 13, 2018
The Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation at Georgetown University, and its executive director Sonal Shah, recently launched the Blockchain Ethical Design Framework, authored by the Beeck Center’s Cara LaPointe and Lara Fishbane.
The purpose of the framework is to ensure the protection of social value throughout the development and implementation of blockchain technologies. The Beeck Center developed the framework to address how the design, application and over-arching strategy of a ...Read More
by Olivia Clark —
July 06, 2018
“The cyborg future of truth,” a new piece on Medium from Lee Rainie of the Pew Research Center, reflects on truth in today’s society and how technology will play a role in its future. In particular, Rainie considers the hope that increasing data availability and the interplay between humans and AI will help to reverse the current trends surrounding disinformation and deception (e.g., fake news).
Rainie discusses the changing notion of truth in detail, arguing that the constant exploitation o...Read More
by Olivia Clark —
July 06, 2018
Institutional Network member Geoff Mulgan co-wrote a new piece for the Nesta blog introducing the idea for a collaborative data network to better assist those active in the labor market. “Open Jobs: Making labour markets smarter and empowering jobseekers” outlines the purpose of the Open Jobs platform, detailing the data it would include, who it would benefit and how.
The idea behind Open Jobs is to create a public workshop of tools that integrates all of the data accessible from public and ...Read More
by Olivia Clark —
June 22, 2018
On June 21st, Network member Sonal Shah spoke at By The People, a four-day arts and dialogue festival in DC. Her discussion, together with Todd Hitt, CEO of Kiddar Capital, at the United States Institute of Peace, focused on capitalism in the 21st century and its relationship to the rising wealth gap in the United States.
Shah’s remarks were centered around the ideas that society needs to consider the social sides of capitalism, and that business decisions need to be made with the long-term ...Read More
by Olivia Clark —
June 22, 2018
Network chair Beth Simone Noveck and the GovLab’s Timi Lewis and Sam DeJohn published a new piece in Public Sector Digest addressing the need for data science-skills training within the public sector. “Managing Through Uncertainty: Why Public Servants Should Embrace Data Science” outlines how knowledge on understanding and properly utilizing data can assist in policy-making decisions, including on the Trump Administration’s proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
The article introduc...Read More
by Olivia Clark —
June 15, 2018
Following the launch of the GovLab’s Data Stewards initiative last month, Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst shared a new piece on Medium sharing lessons learned. The article, “Data Stewards: Data Leadership to Address 21st Century Challenges,” provides an overview of discussions held during a kick-off event hosted by the Cloudera Foundation.
The kick off event featured representatives from companies including Linkedin, Facebook, Uber, Mastercard, DigitalGlobe, Cognizant, Streetlight...Read More
by Andrew Young —
June 15, 2018
On May 1, 2018, MindLab, the world’s first government innovation lab closed its doors. In the culminating post in his Innovation Diary at Apolitical, former MindLab director Thomas Prehn shares nine lessons learned from his time working to innovate and improve governance in Denmark.
The first three lessons are:
Failure is not an option: In political systems, failure is not appreciated, because it exposes the minister and ministry to public scrutiny. And for public servants this is a...Read More
by Olivia Clark —
June 08, 2018
In a recent piece for Harvard Business Review, Network member Karim Lakhani, Hila Lifshitz-Assaf and Michael Tushmanperson explain their findings from a three-year study at NASA’s Space Life Sciences Directorate following the long-term open innovation opportunities and issues of an R&D organization.
A year into the study, they found that a part of the issue was internal, as some scientists and engineers are hesitant about open innovation, as they feel it hinders their own, personal respo...Read More
by Olivia Clark —
June 07, 2018
In light of the discussions at the three-day conference at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center assessing CrowdLaw and technology’s potential to benefit policymaking through public engagement, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck recently published the CrowdLaw Manifesto promoting increased public participation in the lawmaking process by both local and national governments.
The manifesto, which has already been signed by individuals and organizations from around the world, outlines 12 mai...Read More
by Michelle Winowatan —
June 01, 2018
In a new piece for The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage Blog, Henry Farrell, a political science and international affairs professor at George Washington University, interviews Steve Ballmer, former Microsoft CEO and founder of USAFacts.
In the interview, Farrell and Balmer discuss the importance of making government data open and usable for the public. Ballmer argues that opening government data alone is not enough to encourage evidence-based policymaking. Instead, the data should be made acce...Read More
by Michelle Winowatan —
May 31, 2018
In a new post on the GovLab Blog, Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst and Network coordinator Andrew Young shared insights from the Blockchange: Blockchain for Social Change initiative and made public their presentation on the application of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs), including Blockchain, for civic use from this year’s The Impacts of Civic Technology Conference (TICTeC), organized by mySociety in Lisbon.
The blog post and presentation cover early findings from the Blockc...Read More
by Michelle Winowatan —
May 04, 2018
In the context of rising concerns regarding the role of technology’s impacts on technology, Lee Rainie and Janna Anderson published a new report, “The Future of Well-Being in a Tech-Saturated World.”
Pew Research Center and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center surveyed technology experts on the central question: “Over the next decade, how will changes in digital life impact people’s overall well-being physically and mentally?”
They found that 47% of the surveyed 1,150 experts pre...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 04, 2018
In a new Nesta blog post, Geoff Mulgan offers “seven questions in search of better answers” for mission-oriented innovation. Mulgan considers these questions as innovation efforts – like open innovation challenges – are increasingly aimed at achieving large missions. The post also notes that Nesta is releasing a guide to mission-oriented innovation soon.
Question one probes the meaning of the word “mission” itself:
“The first is an old question, but one that’s unavoidable: what counts as a ...Read More
by Michelle Winowatan —
April 13, 2018
The potential of cryptocurrencies to disrupt the financial sector has generated a significant amount of conversation in recent years, with strong opnions coming from both optimists and skeptics.
Looking beyond finance to issues of civic life and governance, Beth Simone Noveck and Victòria Alsina, writing in Forbes, explore a number of exmamples where cities are using cryptocurrencies “to promote local economic development, foster active citizenship, and invest in sustainability while buildin...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 13, 2018
In a recent piece for TechCrunch, Hollie Russon-Gilman reflects on the governance implications of increasing numbers of Millennials moving to cities:
“Millennials are changing notions about life, in part through technology and the awakening of activism following the 2016 election of Donald Trump. With this, there is an opportunity for cities to demonstrate that 1) data and evidence can make urban governance better, 2) City Hall is a dynamic place to work and engage with and 3) cities can tap...Read More
by Michelle Winowatan —
March 30, 2018
In an article published this week in Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), Stefaan Verhulst and Andrew Young explore the potential of leveraging data held by public, private, and civil institutions to more effectively address challenges and opportunities arising from high levels of global migration. The level of migration has doubled since 2000, with 280 million individuals living in a country other than where they were born, and 66 million people forcibly displaced due to wars and natur...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 29, 2018
In a new piece for Pew Research Center’s Fact Tank, Lee Rainie shares insights and trends surfaced by the Center since 2005. Rainie notes that, the trends tracked by our data tell a complex story that is full of conflicting pressures. On one hand, the rapid growth of the platforms is testimony to their appeal to online Americans. On the other, this widespread use has been accompanied by rising user concerns about privacy and social media firms’ capacity to protect their data.”
After presenti...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 16, 2018
This week, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck and the GovLab held a three-day conference in the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center in Italy to bring together diverse voices interested in advancing more participatory approaches to policymaking. The event, Crowdlaw: People-led Innovation in Urban Lawmaking, builds on longstanding research conducted at the GovLab regarding how involving people in drafting legislation and constitutions can increase lawmaking’s effectiveness and legitimacy.
Que...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 16, 2018
In an ongoing series of blog posts at Apolitical, MindLab director Thomas Prehn reflects on the theory and practice of governance innovation. Following an initial post shared in late January, Prehn has penned four new entries in his Innovation Diary:
Design sinking – ”how design thinking has gone awry.”
How to scale up public policy – ”why innovators should think differently about sharing solutions.”
A backlog of curiosity – ”why curiousity is critical to innovative policymaking.”
I...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 23, 2018
In a new piece for The Washington Post Monkey Cage blog, Henry Farrell considers the potential implications of new gun control legislation in the wake of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida and the ongoing activism of surviving teenagers from the school.
While recognizing the uncertainty of new gun restrictions leading to significant change as a result of the millions of guns already owned by Americans, Farrell argues that the effect of laws can sometimes be ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 23, 2018
In a new article for the journal AI & Society, Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst discusses bringing together Artificial Intelligence and Collective Intelligence. The piece explores the potential for AI meeting CI to address challenges and fill gaps associated with both innovations when undertaken in isolation.
Abstract:
This paper seeks to explore the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Collective Intelligence (CI), within the context of innovating how we govern. I...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 16, 2018
In a new post for the Nesta blog, Geoff Mulgan reflects on the idea that the world is largely “divided into the people who make mess and the people who clean it up.” He begins by considering the dichotomy between Disrupters, the predominately white and male cohort that prescribes to the “move fast and break things” mantra, and Cleaners, the predominately less wealthy and female group often responsible for the type of cleaning and maintenance on which we all rely.
Mulgan expands the implicati...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 16, 2018
In an article for Governing, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck and Anirudh Dinesh explore the burgeoning field of collaborative data labs to improve evidence-based policymaking. Based an a series of case studies developed at the GovLab, Noveck and Dinesh reflect on current practice among a number of states that are “establishing offices known as data labs or policy labs to enable them to partner with academia and make use of their administrative data to evaluate and improve programs and polici...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 09, 2018
In an op-ed for The New York Times, Henry Farrell and Rick Perlstein consider the political implications of new audio and video manipulation technologies. The piece, “Our Hackable Political Future,” reflects on technology-enabled political deception in the midst of a public controversy regarding alogrithmically generated fake pornography videos purported to feature actresses and other celebrities.
Farrell and Perlstein argue:
“It might be impossible to stop the advance of this kind of techn...Read More
by Sheena Iyengar, Patrick Bergemann —
February 08, 2018
The impact of open data on entrepreneurship has been touted for years. Almost five years ago, McKinsey estimated that the economic value of such data in the United States is worth as much as $3 trillion annually. Similarly, Omidyar Network has estimated that open data could increase the value of G20 countries by $13 trillion over five years. These estimates are eye-popping, but they remain estimates. Thus far, little evidence exists as to the actual economic value of open data. If the provisi...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 02, 2018
Following the latest U.S. government shutdown, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck considered how CrowdLaw could help break through American legislative disfunction. The new piece for Forbes is informed by ongoing research by the Network into the practice of using technology to tap the intelligence and expertise of the public in order to improve the quality of lawmaking.
While experimentation with CrowdLaw is expanding around the world, and some notable positive outcomes have arisen as a result...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 01, 2018
In a new piece at Apolitical, Network member and MindLab director Thomas Prehn reflects on innovation, leadership, and “distributed ambition.”
He writes:
“On a daily basis, I meet a lot of ambitious people. But often this ambition is driven by utilitarian, individual objectives, maybe even a selfish end-goal: a raise, maybe rising up the hierarchy, social status or public recognition. All legitimate outcomes with their very own justifications.
However, as a leader – someone who tries to mo...Read More
by Michelle Winowatan —
January 26, 2018
In a new article for the Harvard Business Review, Stefaan Verhulst and Andrew Young, the Network’s chief of research and network coordinator respectively, provide insights on the use of social media data to solve public problems. They focus on the burgeoning use of data drawn from social media in data collaboratives – cross-sectoral partnerships that allows corporations, government agencies, and civil society to exchange data so that it can create public value. Verhulst and Young suggest that...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 25, 2018
The Open Governance Research eXchange (OGRX) began with a few ideas and a few key partners seeking to develop answers and solutions to an important question: How to make governance innovation more evidence based by making key findings on what works and why more accessible?
An ever-changing landscape not only requires innovation in how we seek to address major social problems. We also need to move away from faith based innovations to more evidence based ones – promoting and leveraging resear...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 18, 2018
In a new piece for Foreign Policy, Henry Farrell examines the state of American democracy in terms of its susceptibility to misinformation, paranoia, and foreign cyberattacks. As many consider how to respond to Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. election, Farrell argues that, “If it is as easy to compromise democracy as Americans now fear, punishment-based approaches are likely to end up as gigantic games of whack-a-mole. Instead of looking to punish attackers, policymakers need t...Read More
by Michelle Winowatan —
January 12, 2018
Associate Network member Hollie Russon-Gilman and Elena Souris explore the crisis of democratic participation in the United States for a new article in Washington Monthly. The article, “All Politics Is Local,” points in particular to persistently low levels of election turnout across the country. The recent special election in Alabama, for example, had what is considered relatively high turnout, despite only 40 percent of registered voters participating. Russon-Gilman and Souris argue that th...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 09, 2018
In the latest edition of the Harvard Business Review Whiteboard Session, Karim Lakhani provides a 9-minute crash course on blockchain. In the video, Lakahani covers:
What is blockchain? How does it work?
Why should you care?
How does it apply to my business?
How do I begin
He also discusses number of blockchain’s key components that are driving the technology’s growing hype in the press, investment community, and beyond:
Transaction Record
Peer-to-Peer
Transparency and Pseud...Read More
by Andrew Young —
December 15, 2017
On November 29th, Lee Rainie reflected on a number of trends related to trusth, politics, and culture in a hyper-connected world at the Institute for Public Relations 56th Distinguished Lecture and Awards Dinner. Rainie’s remarks, which were built on empirical research data from the Pew Research Center, touch on challenges like what David Foster Wallace called an era of “Total Noise,” rampant political polarization and, a fractured media ecosystem that allows people to “customize their trust....Read More
by Stefaan Verhulst —
December 14, 2017
Cross-posted from Open Democracy
6 Shifts That Can Improve the Way We Solve Problems
We live in turbulent times. Around the world, old certainties are in flux, being jettisoned by voters and protestors for new, often radically different ideas and institutions. This upheaval is evident in specific political events—Brexit, the election of Trump, the Arab Spring—but also in a more general distrust of conventional wisdom, elite authority, and technocratic control.
At the same time, trust in gove...Read More
by Andrew Young —
December 08, 2017
Last week, the GovLab launched a new online course focused on Solving Public Problems with Data. Network chair Beth Simone Noveck and Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst, the co-founders of the GovLab, teach modules on “Data Governance and Sharing” and “Data Collaboratives,” respectively.
From the course announcement:
“To serve the goal of more data-driven and evidence-based governing, The GovLab at NYU Tandon School of Engineering this week launched ‘Solving Public Problems with Da...Read More
by Andrew Young —
December 08, 2017
This week, associate Network member Hollie Russon-Gilman particpated in an event hosted by New America featuring expert discussion on Rebuilding American Democracy in an Era of Deep Inequality. With a focus on community-driven models for engaging citizens in governance and public decision-making, the event sought to “explore precisely if and how these local innovations are offering new pathways for strengthening civic capacity and the limitations of current models of civic engagement.”
Parti...Read More
by Andrew Young —
December 01, 2017
In a new article co-authored by Dana Kanze, Network member an S.T. Lee Professor of Business at Columbia Business School Sheena Iyengar explores the impact of society’s fascination with disruptive innovation on startup funding. The piece, “Startups That Seek to ‘Disrupt’ Get More Funding Than Those That Seek to ‘Build,’” shares findings from a study of 950 startups’ LinkedIn profile data, Crunchbase funding data, full-time employee counts, and average employee tenures.
Among other findings, ...Read More
by Beth Simone Noveck —
November 30, 2017
Cross-posted from Nature
Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 14, Dana Lewis got used to hassle: using a portable glucose monitor to measure her blood sugar levels, and then calculating with a second device whether and when to inject herself with the insulin that she also carried. She set alarms overnight lest her blood sugar drop fatally low. In 2013, dissatisfied with the lack of innovation by conventional medical-device firms, she created an artificial, do-it-yourself pancreas s...Read More
by Michelle Winowatan —
November 22, 2017
Last week, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck announced the launch of a new research initiative at the GovLab aimed at increasing our understanding of how technology can enable citizen participation in the lawmaking process. The CrowdLaw Research Initiative comes at a time when “rates of trust in government [are] at all-time lows, the legitimacy and effectiveness of traditional representative models of lawmaking, typically dominated by political party agendas and conducted by professional staff...Read More
by Michelle Winowatan —
November 21, 2017
In his new book, Big Mind: How Collective Intelligence Can Change Our World, Network member and Nesta chief executive Geoff Mulgan draws on multiple discplines to examine the concept of collective intelligence in an era of smart technologies. Mulgan’s book focuses on how groups can work together and yield results that are smarter and more effective than expert individuals working in isolation, but also on questions regarding smart groups armed with the best technology can often make the wrong...Read More
by Michelle Winowatan —
November 17, 2017
In a new book, Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst and Network coordinator Andrew Young explore the potential of open government data to create positive impacts in developing economies. The book, which arose out of a collaboration between the GovLab, USAID, FHI 360 and the Web Foundation, is premised on the belief that while there is increasing belief that open data can create social and economic transformation, much of the the evidence to date has focused on high income countries. To ...Read More
by Michelle Winowatan —
November 17, 2017
When Network member Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web, his vision was to create an “open platform that allows anyone to share information, access opportunities and collaborate across geographical boundaries”. In a new interview with The Guardian, he expresses concern about how powerful corporations are controlling the internet and how the ecosystem allows fake news and propaganda to be proliferated. Sir Tim, however, remains optimistic by believing that there is still a chance t...Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 09, 2017
In a new piece on the Nesta blog, Geoff Mulgan proposes a new Edtech strategy to help the UK make the most of new educational technology. Mulgan frames the Edtech issue for the UK government as one of both opportunity, with the country home to many important players in the space, and equity, since an absence of public policies will likely lead to only more affluent families gaining access to new tools.
Mulgan shares six specific suggestions on what is needed for the UK to capitalize on the E...Read More
by Stefaan Verhulst —
November 08, 2017
Toward a Research Agenda
As the technology, research and policy communities continue to seek new ways to improve governance and solve public problems, two new types of assets are occupying increasing importance: data and people. Leveraging data and people’s expertise in new ways offers a path forward for smarter decisions, more innovative policymaking, and more accountability in governance. Yet, unlocking the value of these two assets not only requires increased availability and accessibilit...Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 03, 2017
Supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Erik Johnston of Arizona State University recently launched a research project on OpenAPS. OpenAPS is an initiative created by Dana Lewis, a patient with Type 1 Diabetes who created an artificial pancreas to monitor and normalize her glucose levels. As part of the research project, Johnston and his team “will explore the potential of citizen scientists like Lewis to disrupt traditional scientific research and give patients the tool...Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 02, 2017
In a new report from Pew Research Center, Lee Rainie and Janna Anderson share findings from over 1,000 expert respondents on issues of truth and misinformation online. For the report, The Future of Truth and Misinformation Online, Rainie and Anderson used the following framing to tee up survey responses:
“The rise of ‘fake news’ and the proliferation of doctored narratives that are spread by humans and bots online are challenging publishers and platforms. Those trying to stop the spread of f...Read More
by Andrew Young —
October 13, 2017
In a new piece on the Nesta blog, Geoff Mulgan makes the case for an Open Jobs commons to help address persistent issues in the UK labour market: “stagnant social mobility; stagnant pay; stagnant productivity; and major failures of transition to work for many young people.” Mulgan argues that while innovations around the labour market abound, they are “having little or no impact on much of the workforce.”
Mulgan’s approach for addressing the problem relies on both data and collective intelli...Read More
by Andrew Young —
October 13, 2017
In a recent article for Stanford Social Innovation Review, Hollie Russon-Gilman asks the question, “How should we be thinking about the role of government in delivering services to the American people?” The piece, “Government as Government, Not Business,” examines the history and scholarship on “citizens as consumers,” “citizens as customers,” and “citizens as shareholders.” Russon-Gilman argues that while industry has many lessons for government, unique and important responsibilities fall on...Read More
by Andrew Young —
September 08, 2017
In the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, Henry Farrell examines the implications of Ireland’s northern border acting as the boundary between the United Kingdom and Europe in the wake of Brexit. The piece, “Brexit and the Norther Irish Border,” asks, “will the U.K. remain in the EU customs union to preserve peace?”
Farrell dives into the complexity of the situation surrounding the EU, England, Ireland and Northern Ireland:
“The EU, too, wants to avoid a hard Irish border. It believes, howeve...Read More
by Andrew Young —
September 07, 2017
On Sunday, Lee Rainie appeared on CNBC’s “On the Money” to discuss automation, robots and the future of work. Pew Research Center’s Internet Project, which Rainie directs, recently released a study on the subject called, “The Future of Jobs and Jobs Training.”
During the CNBC segment, Rainie noted that so-called “high-touch” jobs are likely to withstand the “rise of machines” for at least some time:
“‘Anything that involves dealing directly with the public and taking care of them, either t...Read More
by Andrew Young —
September 01, 2017
To mark this year’s Con Datos conference in Costa Rica, Stefaan Verhulst and Andrew Young shared findings from the Open Data in Developing Economies initiative at the Inter-American Development Bank’s Abierto al Público blog. The two-part series introduces the Periodic Table of Open Data analytical tool and provides a deep dive on case studies from the region.
The Periodic Table of Open Data is “a new methodology and factors for determining the success (or failure) of using open data.”
A...Read More
by Andrew Young —
August 31, 2017
In a piece for the September-October issue of Harvard Business Review, Karim Lakhani and Marco Iansiti explore the “competition in the age of online giants.” These representatives of the “hub economy” – like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Alibaba and others – often take a network-driven rather than product-driven approach to competition and expansion, resulting in growing challenges. Lakhani and Iansiti argue:
“If current trends continue, the hub economy will spread across more industries, furt...Read More
by Andrew Young —
August 18, 2017
This week, Geoff Mulgan shared a new post on the Nesta blog reflecting on ways to improve the effectiveness of philanthropic funding through new technologies. The piece, “Philanthropy and Innovation,” focuses in particular on open data and artificial intelligence as tools for the field. The post explores “how funders could use data; better sift and assess applications; reduce bureaucracy for applicants; strategically scan different fields; and tap into crowd knowledge.”
One of the approaches...Read More
by Andrew Young —
August 17, 2017
In a new piece for the New America blog, associate Network member Hollie Russon-Gilman and the World Bank’s Tiago Peixoto make the case for expanding the use of participatory budgeting (PB) across the U.S. Russon-Gilman and Peixoto focus in particular on the increasing evidence showing that PB initiatives lead to more representative spending decisions and increased levels of positive citizen perceptions and interactions with government:
“Available evidence suggests that PB leads to significa...Read More
by Audrie Pirkl —
August 11, 2017
In collaboration with the Schools of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Department of Statistics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Professor Karim Lakhani is launching a new, largely online, business analytics certificate program as part of the Harvard Business School Digital Initiative. The three-semester program that requires just eight to ten hours per week is designed to teach students how to leverage data and analytics to drive business growth. The team also partnered wit...Read More
by Audrie Pirkl —
August 10, 2017
In two recent presentations, Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst discusses issues related to solving problems with data. In the talks, Verhulst explores how bad data can create stumbling blocks for evidence-based policymaking, and how a new concept of data responsibility can help us more effectively unlock the value of data held by diverse actors while avoiding risks and potential harms.
First, in his presentation Bad Data: The Hobgoblin of Effective Government, hosted by the American...Read More
by Andrew Young —
August 04, 2017
In two-part series for _ The Washington Post _ Monkey Cage blog, Henry Farrell interviews Steve Ballmer, former CEO of Microsoft and creator of USAFacts. The interview touches on issues surrounding making public data more accessible and useful, and the challenge of mobilizing facts to inform public debate.
From the discussion:
“HF – You talked in a previous interview about how numbers can end arguments. Yet here, we’re talking about how numbers can start them. How do you strike that balance...Read More
by Andrew Young —
August 03, 2017
In a recent episode of the RSA Radio podcast, Network member Geoff Mulgan looks back on his 1997 book Connexity: How to Live in a Connected World. The podcast features Mulgan in conversation with Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).
Episode Description:
“Matthew Taylor of the RSA asks if ideas really have the power to change the world by revisiting influential books on public policy with their authors. This week...Read More
by Andrew Young —
July 28, 2017
In a new piece for The Conversation, Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst shares findings from a new GovLab research project examining Open Data in Developing Economies. Informed by 12 in-depth case studies, GovLab sought to assess the current (largely lacking) evidence on the impact of open data across developing countries, develop a framework of analysis to inform future research and evaluation, identify the key enabling conditions and disabling factors related to the use of open data...Read More
by Audrie Pirkl —
July 26, 2017
In a recent post for The Washington Post Monkey Cage blog, associate Network member Hollie Russon-Gilman, together with Tiago Peixoto, Jonathan Mellon and Fredrik M. Sjoberg, highlights research published by the Harvard Kennedy School comparing political participation, both online and offline, among men and women. The research shows that, in terms of offline policy, women are more likely to engage in “thin” forms of participation like voting, but are less likely to engage in “thick” participa...Read More
by Audrie Pirkl —
July 21, 2017
In a recent Trend article, Pew Research Center’s Director of Internet and Technology Lee Rainie analyzes the infusion of digital technology into everyday life, and raises questions about quality and fairness that accompany behavioral alterations. Tomorrow’s disruptions - caused by the rise of the Internet of Things - will spark the next digital evolution. The Internet is already becoming more invisible and intangible, while also becoming more deeply embedded in people’s everyday lives. For ex...Read More
by Andrew Young —
July 21, 2017
New Report Provides Framework to Understand Evidence and Improve Future Open Data Initiatives;
Expands Insights and Practices Gathered from 12 Case Studies of Developing Economies;
Identifies 27 Success Factors in a Unique Periodic Table of Open Data; and Offers Recommendations
BROOKLYN, New York –Today, The Governance Labat the NYU Tandon School of Engineering has launched a first-of-its-kindreport that assesses and explores ways open data can be used in developing economies. The GovLab’s...Read More
by Andrew Young —
July 14, 2017
In a new piece or the PS: Political Science & Politics, Hollie Russon-Gilman provides insight on “Civic Tech for Urban Collaborative Governance.” With the piece, Russon-Gilman seeks to “initiate a research agenda to understand how policy makers can leverage civic tech to enable new channels for citizens to participate in the decision making process.”
From the abstract:
“This article aims to contribute to a burgeoning field of ‘civic technology’ to identify precise pathways through which...Read More
by Andrew Young —
July 14, 2017
In a recent edition of Harvard Business Review’s Ideacast podcast, Karim Lakhani discusses how blockchain works and its likely impact on industry and other sectors. The 20-minute podcast features Lakhani in conversation with HBR editor Sarah Green Carcmichael, and is available on Soundcloud, iTunes, among other outlets.
In response to a question on blockchain currently being in its “dial-up modem” days, Lakhani predicts a rapid uptake of blockchain-enabled activities, and calls for greater e...Read More
by Audrie Pirkl —
June 30, 2017
This week, Lee Rainie, director of internet, science and technology at the Pew Research Center, presented findings about Americans’ trust in scientists at the Aspen Ideas Festival. In a session called, “The Genetic Revolution, Unintended Consequences, and the Public Trust,” he lead a discussion about public institutional trust in scientific work. Some of the key points Rainie presented include:
67% of Americans say science has an a mostly positive effect on society
Nearly half or more e...Read More
by Audrie Pirkl —
June 29, 2017
In a recent article for Oxford Academic’s International Studies Quarterly, Henry Farrell - together with John Quiggin – discusses the current economic crisis, and the rise and fall of Keynesianism in the modern political arena. In the piece, “Consensus, Dissensus, and Economic Ideas: Economic Crisis and the Rise and Fall of Keynesianism,” Farrell and Quiggin debate whether or not sociological arguments about professions, in conjunction with those about spaces of political contention as ecolog...Read More
by Hannah Pierce —
June 09, 2017
In a new article for the Inter-American Development Bank’s Abierto al público blog, Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst, Network coordinator Andrew Young, and Prianka Srinivasan discuss data collaboratives, a potential solution to leverage private data for public good. They argue that the cross-sector exchange of data can be particularly beneficial to “humanitarian and anti-poverty efforts, urban planning, natural resource stewardship, health, and disaster management.”
The author star...Read More
by Andrew Young —
June 08, 2017
In a new piece for Harvard Business Review, Network member Anita McGahan, Kathryn Mossman, Onil Bhattacharyya, MD, and Will Mitchell explore new mechanisms for “Expanding the Reach of Primary Care in Developing Countries.” The piece reports findings from a research project undertaken by the authors in partnership with the Rapid Routes to Scale group aimed at identifying “key drivers of scaling private sector primary care services” in developing countries.
Through “site visits, interviews, do...Read More
by Andrew Young —
June 02, 2017
In a new letter, Beeck Center executive director and Network member Sonal Shah looked back on achievements from the first three years of the Beeck Center’s existence at Georgetown University, and plotted out next steps for social impact work at Beeck and beyond.
Beeck’s work over the years – including courses, partnerships with organizations and policymakers, and research – has uncovered a number of lessons on how to scale social impact. Shah writes:
“Innovative solutions alone are not enou...Read More
by Andrew Young —
June 01, 2017
This week, Network member Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore shared a new piece in Foreign Affairs on whether or not President Trump’s inconsistencies in word and action should be classified as hypocrisy. Farrell and Finnemore argue that while there are no shortage of past tweets and other public statements that contradict more recent statements and actions from the president, in many ways, Trump has dispensed with the type of traditional diplomatic hypocrisy that steadies the liberal world o...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 25, 2017
This week, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck launched a new initiative from the GovLab, Mexico’s Secretaría de la Función Pública (Secretariat of the Civil Service) and the Inter-American Development Bank aimed at “identify[ing] and implement[ing] innovative approaches for fighting corruption.” The Smarter Crowdsourcing Against Corruption initiative “will convene global experts from a variety of fields, including public administration, data analytics, technology, law enforcement, and business”...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 16, 2017
Last week in the The Washington Post Monkey Cage blog, Henry Farrell examined the role of NSA secrets and software ‘patches’ in enabling the ransomware attack affecting businesses, hospitals, and governments around the world. Farrell notes that the attack was made possible by a ‘zero-day exploit’ – “a previously unknown flaw in Windows software that makes it easy to take control of vulnerable systems.” The exploit was made known last month as part of a leak of National Security Agency data by...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 12, 2017
This week, Crooked Timber launched a new seminar on Cory Doctorow’s latest book, Walkaway. The seminar features 12 authors (listed below) exploring different aspects of Doctorow’s new novel. Network member Henry Farrell’s contribution is titled “No Exit” and analyzes Walkaway in comparison to William Gibson’s The Peripheral, which “covers many of the same themes that Walkaway does. The rise of extreme inequality described by Piketty and others, as the super-rich become so different from every...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 09, 2017
In an interview for Business Insider, Sir Tim Berners-Lee spoke with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner about “on the future of the internet, fake news, net neutrality, and the rising tide of censorship in countries across the world.”
Sir Tim discussed net neutrality as part of a broader discussion about questions on the role of the free market and the impact of monopolies in the digital realm:
“I think the antitrust system is really important. The market works while there’s a mix of people,...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 05, 2017
This week, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck moderated a panel on “Free Speech in the Networked World” at the Knight First Amendment Institute’s DISRUPTED: Speech and Democracy in the Digital Age conference. Noveck was joined by University of North Carolina professor Zeynep Tufekci and Colombia Law School professor Tim Wu. Noveck, Tufekci and Wu discussed the “First Amendment, free speech and the democratic implications of new technologies.”
Video of the full discussion is available below:
E...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 03, 2017
Today Network member Lee Rainie and Janna Anderson released a new Pew Research Center report on the Future of Jobs and Job Training. The report, developed as a partnership between Pew and Elon’s Imagining the Internet Center, is based on input provided by over 1000 expert “technologists, scholars, practitioners, strategic thinkers and education leaders.” It seeks to gain. Given the (quickly accelerating) proliferation of robots, automation and artificial intelligence, the report seeks to incr...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 21, 2017
Last week, The Conversation published a new piece from Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst on the growing use of social media data to improve people’s lives around the world. Verhulst begins the article by describing a data collaborative launched in Malawi where the Red Cross improved its aid and relief distribution thanks to a mapping effort built on Facebook’s population density data.
He goes on to describe the broader opportunity space created by the use of social media data to sol...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 21, 2017
This week, associate Network member Hollie Russon-Gilman shared “three civic engagement models that can help bring the voices of everyday citizens into public life” in a piece for Stanford Social Innovation Review. The article, “The Moment for Participatory Democracy,” explores examples of 1) giving citizens government data (e.g., What Works Cities); 2) giving citizens a direct line to their representatives (e.g., Crown Townhall); and giving citizens a seat at the table:
“There are also seve...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 20, 2017
This week, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck shared a new piece in Nature offering Five Hacks for Digital Democracy. The piece argues that, “We need to change the processes by which we make policy and deliver services for the public good. Empirical yet agile research in the wild is the route to knowing how.”
Before diving into her five hacks to improve digital democracy – 1) data-driven decisionmaking; 2) open government data; 3) responsible data use; 4) citizen engagement; and 5) incentives ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 13, 2017
This week, Henry Farrell, Network member and associate professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, launched a new stream on The Washington Post Monkey Cage blog focusing on questions of 21st Century democracy and the world of Opening Governance studied by the Research Network.
The first post in the Opening Governance stream at the Monkey Cage – “Hungary’s government wants to shut down its most prominent university. That may be backfiring” – exami...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 10, 2017
Last week, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) announced that Sir Tim Berners-Lee is this year’s recipient of the Turing Award – the so-called Nobel Prize of of computing. ACM chose Sir Tim as the Turing Award winner in its 50th anniversary year for “inventing the World Wide Web, the first web browser, and the fundamental protocols and algorithms allowing the web to scale.” Sir Tim will also receive a $1 million prize provided by Google.
In response to the announcement, Sir Tim sai...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 23, 2017
In the January-February issue of Harvard Business Review, Network member Karim Lakhani and fellow Harvard Business School professor Marco Iansiti explore the potential impacts of the emergent “foundational” technology. While bullish on blockchain’s ability to fundamentally alter (and improve) a wide array of private and public sector processes, including but not limited to financial ones:
“With blockchain, we can imagine a world in which contracts are embedded in digital code and stored in t...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 17, 2017
In the latest issue of Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Network Chief of Research Stefaan Verhulst, Iryna Susha of Örebro University and Marijn Janssen from the Delft University of Technology explore challenges and coordination mechanisms to advance the field of data collaboratives. Data collaboratives are a new form of collaboration, beyond the public-private partnership model, in which participants from different sectors — in particular companies – exchange their data to...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 17, 2017
Sunday marked the 28th anniversary of the World Wide Web. To mark the anniversary, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the Web’s inventor and a member of the Research Network, shared a letter on the World Wide Web Foundation website focusing especially on three new trends believes “we must tackle in order for the web to fulfill its true potential as a tool which serves all of humanity.”
First, “ We’ve lost control of our personal data: ‘ The current business model for many websites offers free content in e...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 10, 2017
Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst recently appeared on the inaugural episode of Global Partners Digital (GPD) podcast, In beta. GPD is a “social purpose company dedicated to fostering a digital environment underpinned by human rights and democratic values.” GPD created the In beta podcast to “host interesting conversations with interesting people in our field, outside of the conventions of traditional policy discourse; which can sometimes work to confine people in silos, and discoura...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 09, 2017
In a new essay on the Nesta blog, Geoff Mulgan proposes a theory aimed at providing a “constructive direction for politics and policy after Brexit and Trump.” The piece seeks to provide a blueprint for better understanding the opposing forces currently at play (i.e., the remnants of previous political order vs. the current, often populist shocks upending the system) and articulating a plausible, more broadly beneficial path forward across domains like health, education and democracy itself.
...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 01, 2017
In his latest article for The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog, Henry Farrell, along with Abraham Newman, examines the current state of the far-right European parties and their relationship to the European Union. In particular, they examine the issue through the lens of France’s National Front, which has been accused of misusing European Parliament expenses, and the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), the leader of the Brexit movement. Farrell and Newman find that most anti-European U...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 01, 2017
A team from Arizona State University’s Center for Policy Informatics (CPI), led by Network Associate Member Justin Longo and including Network member Erik Johnston, has just published their research on the concept of “digitally invisible” in the journal Policy & Internet (open access is available here).
With the emergence of “policy analytics” – involving the combination of new data sources (e.g., from mobile smartphones, Internet of Everything (IoE) devices, and electronic payment cards...Read More
by Geoff Mulgan —
March 01, 2017
“Cross-posted from Nesta blog
Today we’re publishing an overview of digital innovations in democracy – to make sense of what’s possible, what’s working and what can guide governments, parliaments, parties and local governments.
This is a topic I’ve been fascinated by for years – over 20 years ago I wrote and edited a collection on how ‘lean democracy’ could use digital tools; I’ve been involved in many experiments; I was first chair of the organisation Involve; and most recently through Nes...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 15, 2017
Yesterday, Stanford Social Innovation Review published a piece from Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst on a new form of “Corporate Social Responsibility for a Data Age.” The piece, which builds on a talk given by Verhulst at TEDx MidAtlantic and the GovLab’s recently launched DataCollaboratives.org website, discusses the need for a new conception of data responsibility in our age of data-driven problem-solving (and data-driven risks).
After proposing a conception of Data Responsibili...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 09, 2017
Announced at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Geoff Mulgan joins a group of 25 international, cross-sector experts in the newly established council on the Future of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The initiative is aimed at better understanding the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution.
From the council description:
“This council will explore the Fourth Industrial Revolution as an opportunity to change models of innovation-driven entrepreneurship for the better, and create an env...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 08, 2017
Yesterday, Lee Rainie, Network member and director of Pew’s Internet, Science and Technology Research, and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center’s Janna Anderson released a new report on the Algorithm Age. The report seeks to better understand the pros and cons of our increasing reliance on algorithms across many aspects of life. Rainie and Anderson note that, “Algorithms are often elegant and incredibly useful tools used to accomplish tasks. They are mostly invisible aids, augmenti...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 01, 2017
In her latest column for Governing, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck describes the GovLab’s newly launched Data Justice Network. The piece, written together with Batu Sayici, the GovLab’s director of user experience, makes the case for expert networking technologies to “potentially transform how justice practitioners gain and share knowledge.” As data-driven decision-making takes hold across governance sectors, including criminal justice, Noveck and Sayici argue that the ability to identify a...Read More
by Prianka Srinivasan —
January 29, 2017
At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck and Network member Sir Tim Berners-Lee took part in a number of sessions, including the “Shaping Davos” event, focusing on how technology can help to solve global problems. Both spoke about meeting the challenges facing a more globalized and dynamic internet environment, along with the great potentials new internet technologies hold.
Berners-Lee emphasized the need to counter cyber abuse in a nuanced y...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 23, 2017
In 2014 a team from Arizona State University’s Center for Policy Informatics (CPI), supported by Network member Erik Johnston and led by Network Associate Member Justin Longo, began researching how GitHub might be used in public sector organizations to facilitate open knowledge sharing and collaboration. The results of that research have now been published in the journal _Canadian Public Administration_ (open access is available here).
GitHub is the largest web-based source code project host...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 19, 2017
This week, the GovLab, through different partnerships with UNICEF ( focused on creating data collaboratives to improve children’s lives) and Omidyar Network ( studying new ways to match open-data demand and supply to increase impact), launched DataCollaboratives.org. Data Collaboratives are a new form of collaboration built on cross-sector data sharing to solve public problems.
Network chair Beth Simone Noveck described the potential of data collaboratives: “Recent years have seen exponentia...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 17, 2017
For the Winter issue of Democracy, Henry Farrell explores the weakening of political parties in the United Kingdom and Europe – culminating in Brexit. The article, “Disunited Kingdom,” tracks the shifts of political parties over time, with an eye toward explaining how Brexit became a reality, and how “the Labour Party [became] so weak that the Conservatives do not need to worry about Labour defeating them in the next election, or perhaps in the election after that. This means that UK politica...Read More
by Theo Bass —
January 04, 2017
Cross-posted from Nesta
Last week Nesta hosted two small events on digital democracy in London with support from the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance. We invited speakers from four inspiring global initiatives in digital engagement to share lessons and discuss key themes in the future of technology and democracy. With stories and perspectives from Brazil, Iceland, Taiwan, France and the UK, here’s a summary of what we learned.
1. Despite potential pitfalls, new to...Read More
by Andrew Young —
December 15, 2016
Based on a November talk given at ESADE in Barcelona, this week, Nesta’s Geoff Mulgan shared a draft paper, “A New Family of Data Commons?” for public comment. The paper is part of Nesta’s ongoing work on the topic, which seeks “to design and test out new ways of combining data that give citizens greater control, while also making it easier to generate public value through linking data together.”
Mulgan offers seven central areas where the establishment of a data commons can have a positive ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
December 14, 2016
Last week, Network member Sheena Iyengar shared insights from the science of choice relevant to the 2016 U.S. presidential election for Columbia Business School’s Ideas at Work publication. In particular, Iyengar seeks to answer the question, “did choice fail us in this election?”
Iyengar uses the piece to examine the role of choice in Trump’s election, from the Republican primaries when Trump faced 16 other opponents, to a general election between two of the least popular candidates in hist...Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 30, 2016
In the wake of the UK’s EU referendum and the US election of Donald Trump, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck provides a vision of governmental crowdsourcing of expertise in The Guardian. She argues that the embrace of “charismatic demagogues” is at least in part the result of the public’s lack of trust in institutions, which are seen as remote entities staffed with “experts” who possess little interest in the opinions, skills and experiences of citizens.
Noveck notes:
“Citizen engagement is ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 04, 2016
In a discussion with The Guardian, Network member Sir Tim Berners-Lee and his co-founder of the Open Data Institute, Sir Nigel Shadbolt, touched on some concerns related to the growing open data space. They focused in particular on questions of open data being used for nefarious purposes (beyond those related to privacy concerns):
“Asked about whether open data could have security vulnerabilities, Berners-Lee said criminals could manipulate open data for profit, for example by placing bets o...Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 04, 2016
At this year’s CityLab 2016 event, hosted by The Atlantic, the Aspen Institute, and Bloomberg Philanthropies, Network Chair Beth Simone Noveck discussed a joint effort to fight Zika through smarter crowdsourcing techniques with Argentina’s Undersecretary for Modernization Rudi Borrmann. CityLab brought together “more than 500 global city leaders—40 mayors, plus urban theorists, city planners, scholars, architects, and entrepreneurs—for a series of conversations about the challenges and ideas ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
October 28, 2016
At this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, _Publishers Weekly _interviewed Network member Lee Rainie about Pew Research Center’s inquiry into how Americans consume books, and “the future of reading.” The discussion was based on the recently released Book Reading 2016 Pew report, as well as previous surveys on the topic conducted over the years.
In addition to discussing the continued popularity of physical books and strategies for conducting surveys on book readership, Rainie described the change i...Read More
by Andrew Young —
October 25, 2016
For The Conversation, Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst proposes a new way of viewing data responsibility in the information age. He argues that while the value and utility of data (and open government data in particular) is increasingly recognized, much of the most useful information is held by the private sector in proprietary datasets. A new understanding of and framework for data responsibility, he argues, “can help organisations break down these private barriers and share their ...Read More
by Robert Montano —
October 19, 2016
Sheena S. Iyengar, inaugural S.T. Lee Professor of Business School, joined Edie Berg on her Strong Women’s Club Podcast last week to discuss the implications of her research. Iyengar shares her perspective on how people present themselves to others, choose the people in their circles, the psychology of authenticity, and the 2016 U.S. presidential election. These topics represent a synthesis of the overall research conducted by Iyengar, who argues that modernity is a “special era in which we c...Read More
by Andrew Young —
October 17, 2016
In a new blog post on for the International Open Data Conference (IODC) website, Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst and Danny Lämmerhirt of Open Knowledge International report back on their conference ‘action track’ on Measurement and Increasing Impact. The action track “sought to review the need and role of research for (scaling) open data practice and policy” and was “informed by the various sessions and workshops that took place at the Open Data Research Symposium prior to the Conf...Read More
by Andrew Young —
October 14, 2016
Last week, Lee Rainie, Network member and director of Internet, Science and Technology research at Pew Research Center, shared findings on the use of digital technology at the Federal Reserve Board’s Editors and Designers conference. His keynote talk explored “the impact of social media, collaboration, and future trends in technology with a special focus on the issues tied to security and reputational risk that face the Federal Reserve System.”
In particular, he proposed ways in which Pew’s ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
October 14, 2016
Writing for Vox, George Washington University political scientist Henry Farrell argues that Chris Hayes’ 2012 book The Twilight of the Elites is having a “real moment” right now. In particular, Hayes’ book – published before the current wave of populist and nationalistic rhetoric and political action in the United States – proposes that “the reality of an unequal country is generating a political crisis, in which people lose their trust in institutions and become radicalized.”
Farrell argues...Read More
by Stefaan Verhulst —
October 03, 2016
Key Findings from Detailed Case Studies Around the World
By Stefaan Verhulst, and Andrew Young
Publisher: O’Reilly Released: September 2016
Open data has spurred economic innovation, social transformation, and fresh forms of political and government accountability in recent years, but few people understand how open data works. This comprehensive 459-page report, developed with support from Omidyar Network, presents detailed case studies of open data projects throughout the world, along wi...Read More
by Julie Simon —
October 02, 2016
“Whether, and to what extent you think a crowd can be wise has implications for the kinds of engagement you might advocate.
Democratic theory has tended to take a pretty dim view of people and their ability to make decisions. Many political philosophers believe that people are at best uninformed and at worst, ignorant and incompetent. This view is a common justification for our system of representative democracy – people can’t be trusted to make decisions so this responsibility should fall ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
September 22, 2016
In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Network member and creator of the World Wide Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee and his colleague at MIT CSAIL Daniel Weitzner push back against calls for the United States to exert greater control in the Internet Governance space. In particular, the piece is a response to a call from Senator Ted Cruz for the U.S. to continue and ramp up its stewardship of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names (ICANN), the institution that controls the Internet’s do...Read More
by Andrew Young —
September 09, 2016
Last week, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck and Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst released a new report as part of the Partnership for Public Service and IBM Center for the Business of Government “Ready to Govern – Developing a Management Roadmap for the Next Administration” series. The report, “Encouraging and Sustaining Innovation in Government: Technology and Innovation in the Next Administration,” was informed by insights raised during a January roundtable discussion that feature...Read More
by Andrew Young —
September 09, 2016
In his latest post on the Nesta blog, Geoff Mulgan describes why he’s “skeptical” about how the idea of a theory of change is often presented, despite being “wholly supportive of the underlying notion.” So while Mulgan highlights the importance of an organization having a “coherent account of why the things it does might have the effects it wants,” he argues that the ‘theory of change’ framing can be misleading in two central ways:
“One is that they tend to be far too linear, assuming that i...Read More
by Andrew Young —
July 29, 2016
In Omidyar Network’s Positive Returns Medium publication, Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst offers insights on “Building a Civic Tech Sector to Last.” The article is a response to Omidyar Network’s “ Engines of Change” report, which provides lessons for the civic tech sector based on learnings from other social movements.
Design principles recommended by Verhulst include encourage experimentation, establish an evidence base and a common set of metrics and:
“Identify the signal. As ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
July 28, 2016
Last week, Dr. Tanya Kelley and Dr. Chul Hyun Park of Arizona State University’s Center for Policy Informatics (CPI) successfully defended their dissertations. Both students worked under the guidance of CPI director and Network member Erik Johnston.
About Dr. Kelley’s dissertation:
“Dr. Kelley’s dissertation, Open Innovation Implementation in a Public University: Administrator design, management, and evaluation of participatory programs & platforms, is a case study of how Arizona State ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
July 14, 2016
For The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog, Henry Farrell examines the influence of game theory on the current Pokémon Go phenomenon. The augmented reality smartphone game has quickly reached a level of immense popularity, and many people looking to sign up and join the wave of excitement are being greeted by error messages due to overwhelmed servers. The tendency to continue taxing those servers with repeated attempts to register for the popular game are, in Farrell’s view, consistent with g...Read More
by Andrew Young —
July 08, 2016
The White House recently released a new Fact Sheet on “Launching the Data-Driven Justice Initiative: Disrupting the Cycle of Incarceration.” Included in the fact sheet is the description of a partnership between the White House and the GovLab, under the direction of Network chair Beth Simone Noveck, to launch a coaching and mentoring program for those interested in implementing data-driven criminal justice initiatives.
From the Fact Sheet:
“New York University’s (NYU) Governance Lab (The Go...Read More
by Andrew Young —
July 07, 2016
For Foreign Affairs, Network member and George Washington University associate professor of political scientist Henry Farrell examined how the Brexit fallout will impact Ireland. From geopolitical to economic to cultural issues, the United Kingdom’s move away from the European Union is likely to create a number of challenges and decision points for the Irish government. Farrell notes that if Ireland wishes to “maintain good ties with the EU—and all indications suggest that it does—it will hav...Read More
by Julie Simon —
July 05, 2016
By Julie Simon and Theo Bass – Reposted from Nesta Blog
Politics is in crisis. Disillusionment, a lack of trust in politicians, apathy, falling turnout at elections and a surge in populist movements around Europe. What is the way out of this miasma?
Digital tools and technologies have transformed the way we live and work. Could they transform our politics too? New technologies are not likely to be a silver bullet to the current predicament, but the lesson from cities across Europe is that t...Read More
by Andrew Young —
July 01, 2016
This week, the IEEE announced that Network member Deborah Estrin is the 2017 recipient of the IEEE Internet Award. The award is given annually to individuals providing “exceptional contributions to the advancement of internet technology.”
From the announcement:
“Specifically, Estrin was selected for ‘formative contributions and thought leadership in internet routing and in mobile sensing techniques and applications, from environmental monitoring to personal and community health.’ IEEE is th...Read More
by Andrew Young —
June 30, 2016
This week for The Guardian, Geoff Mulgan described how the increased use of community currencies could help to better address local needs. Mulgan describes the aim of community currencies as connecting “different kinds of supply – of time, work or things – to otherwise unmet demands or needs.” He points to a number of examples – from new currencies used during economic contractions in Argentina in the 2000s and Greece more recently to the UK’s Spice Time Credits. Spice Time Credits, which can...Read More
by Andrew Young —
June 24, 2016
Yesterday, Network member Anita McGahan appeared on CBC Radio’s Ideas with Paul Kennedy to discuss Big Data. The show is the first half of a two-part series examining “the opportunities, the risks – and the trade-offs – as the world of Big Data relentlessly changes our lives.” Part 1 was originally recorded at May 9th at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.
Joining McGahan on the panel were:
Ashkan Soltani, an independent researcher and technologist specializing...Read More
by Andrew Young —
June 24, 2016
This week, the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog posted a conversation between Network member Henry Farrell and Network Chair Beth Simone Noveck regarding the arguments in Noveck’s book Smart Citizens, Smarter State: The Technologies of Expertise and the Future of Governing. The conversation touched on the reasons government does not currently make use of the expertise distributed in society, legal barriers to such engagement, the Obama Administration’s efforts to create a more open U.S. gov...Read More
by Andrew Young —
June 22, 2016
This week the Pew Research Center released “ Social Media and the Workplace,” a new report exploring how Americans use social media while on the job. Lee Rainie, Network member and director of internet, science, and technology research at Pew, shared insights with USA Today regarding the report’s findings (such as 77% of workers saying they use social media at work, regardless of any policy restrictions from their employer)..
Rainie argued that both shifting conceptions of work-life balance ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
June 17, 2016
This week, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service began openly publishing machine-readable nonprofit tax return data on Amazon Web Services. This new era of openness in philanthropy is the result of years of advocacy work, including particularly the efforts of Public.Resource.org’s Carl Malamud. Network chair Beth Simone Noveck has also been a part of the effort to open this data. In 2013, Noveck and Daniel L. Goroff published Information for Impact: Liberating Nonprofit Sector Data a paper descri...Read More
by Andrew Young —
June 10, 2016
This week, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Internet Archive head Brewster Kahle and others came together in San Francisco for the Decentralized Web Summit. Participants sought to brainstorm and operationalize strategies for a new Web, in which privacy, security and preservation are the default, and “websites are easily accessible to all as long as at least one person somewhere in the world is hosting a copy.” The event, and Sir Tim’s involvement in particular, were profiled in The New York Times.
One o...Read More
by Andrew Young —
June 08, 2016
In the London School of Economics Review of Books, Zeynep Engin, founder and lead investigator of Data for Policy, reviewed Network chair Beth Simone Noveck’s book _Smart Citizens, Smarter State: The Technologies of Expertise and the Future of Governing_. Noveck’s describes the realized and potential impact of leveraging technology to match the supply of citizen expertise to the demand for it in government.
Engin “strongly recommends this book for those looking to understand how technologica...Read More
by Juia Root —
May 24, 2016
Which companies are using Open Data, and how are they related?
The GovLab Embarks to Expand Open Data 500 Study in Collaboration with Graduate Business School of Columbia University
Two years ago _ _the GovLab_ developed the first-ever _ census of open data companies in the US: the Open Data 500. Today, in collaboration with the Graduate Business School of Columbia University, the GovLab is launching the next iteration which will have two goals. One, we will update and expand the Open Data ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 20, 2016
This week, Nesta CEO Geoff Mulgan and UK Cabinet Office minister Matthew Hancock launched a new government Data Science Ethical Framework. Mulgan’s remarks from the launch were shared in a new blog post on the Nesta website. Mulgan begins by highlighting the outsized potential of data serving the public good:
“Almost everything we do now is captured as data - where we go, what we buy, who we talk to, and data is very much part of daily work at Nesta. We are involved heavily as an investor in...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 19, 2016
Next week, Network member Lee Rainie will give the MIP Summit keynote on “American Attitudes About Data Privacy, Security and Surveillance: Implications for the book industry.” The event is aimed at “demonstrating why and how publishers and industry stakeholders who implement corporate social responsibility and cause marketing efforts can grow their businesses.”
Ahead of the event, Rainie discussed online data privacy and security – and their implications for the publishing industry – with e...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 13, 2016
This week, Sir Tim Berners-Lee gave a keynote talk at the International Digital Publishing Forum’s Digicon conference in Chicago. Sir Tim’s talk, “Realizing the Vision of Publishing Technology Being Web Technology,” discussed the future of publishing on the Web and moves toward seamless integration between print and digital publishing.
Publisher’s Weekly provided a recap of the talk:
“…Berners-Lee, who is also founder and director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), outlined the history...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 12, 2016
In a piece for The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog, Henry Farrell examines the new Marvel Comics movie Captain America: Civil War through a lens of global politics. While the filmmakers set out to make this outing of the Avengers as realistic in its portrayal of the likely real-world ramifications of superheroics as possible, Farrell finds that, although the film is “very good and highly entertaining,” it does does not always succeed in accurately portraying the likely global impacts of th...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 06, 2016
A team from Arizona State University’s Center for Policy Informatics, directed by Network member Erik Johnston, published “ Design Principles for Engaging and Retaining Virtual Citizen Scientists” in the latest issue of Conservation Biology. The authors – Justin Longo, former Network post-doc and current assistant professor and Cisco Systems Research Chair in Big Data and Open Government at the University of Regina, Dara M. Wald and A. R. Dobell – explore the opportunities and challenges of u...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 05, 2016
“Last week, The GovLab, in collaboration with founding partners mySociety and the World Bank’s Digital Engagement Evaluation Team launched the Open Governance Research Exchange (OGRX), a new platform for sharing research and findings on innovations in governance.
From crowdsourcing to nudges to open data to participatory budgeting, more open and innovative ways to tackle society’s problems and make public institutions more effective are emerging. Yet little is known about what innovations ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 05, 2016
Nesta’s Geoff Mulgan and Albert Bravo-Biosca previewed this month’s Making Innovation and Growth Policy Work global conference in a new blog post on “Bringing Experimentation and Evidence to Innovation Policy: A Radical Idea Whose Time has Come.” The event – which will be held on May 24-26th in London with speakers including Network member Karim Lakhani – will “showcase some of the latest ideas in innovation and entrepreneurship policy, and explore how governments can become more experimental...Read More
by Henry Farrell —
May 02, 2016
“Over the last two years, a group of scholars from disciplines including political science, political theory, cognitive psychology, information science, statistics and computer science have met under the auspices of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance. The goal of these meetings has been to bring the insights of different disciplines to bear on fundamental problems of collective problem solving. How do we best solve collective problems? How should we study and thin...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 25, 2016
Members of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance are participating in two exciting events in the next month that will bring together interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners looking to accelerate innovation in governance around the world.
First, chief of research Stefaan Verhulst, Network coordinator Andrew Young and Network member Erik Johnston are participating in this week’s ‘ The Impacts of Civic Technology Conference 2016 (TICTeC),’ hosted by mySociety. ...Read More
by Henry Farrell —
April 25, 2016
Over the last two years, a group of scholars from disciplines including political science, political theory, cognitive psychology, information science, statistics and computer science have met under the auspices of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance. The goal of these meetings has been to bring the insights of different disciplines to bear on fundamental problems of collective problem solving. How do we best solve collective problems? How should we study and think...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 22, 2016
This week, the Web Foundation, founded by Network member and inventor of the World Wide Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee, released the results of the 3rd Open Data Barometer. The Open Data Barometer provides a “global snapshot of the state of open government data in 92 countries.” The findings were released as an extended report and made available in a custom data visualization tool.
In response to the findings, Sir Tim commented:
“Inequality and poverty are about more than income – they are also ab...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 21, 2016
This week, Open mHealth announced the launch of ResearchStack, “the first Android framework for building and designing apps for clinical studies.” Over the past five months, principal investigator Deborah Estrin worked with collaborators at Open mHealth, Cornell Tech, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and touchlab to provide developers and researchers with the ability to adapt existing clinical study iOS apps to the Android platform – making them accessible to Android’s 1.4 billion users wor...Read More
by Henry Farrell —
April 20, 2016
Over the last two years, a group of scholars from disciplines including political science, political theory, cognitive psychology, information science, statistics and computer science have met under the auspices of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance. The goal of these meetings has been to bring the insights of different disciplines to bear on fundamental problems of collective problem solving. How do we best solve collective problems? How should we study and think...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 15, 2016
This week, the Americas Society/Council of the Americas (AS/COA) hosted a panel discussion on how Latin American cities can leverage new technologies “to be smart and prepare a future-ready economy with improved public services, air quality, and transportation systems.” Network chair Beth Simone Noveck moderated the panel, which featured:
Michael Chui, MGI Partner, McKinsey & Company
Josh Moskowitz, Director, Global Public Affairs, Citi
Clifford J. Thomas, Managing Director, Smart...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 11, 2016
Today Nesta CEO Geoff Mulgan shared a new paper: “An open letter on governing London – how the new mayor could get the wiring right.” Mulgan’s piece provides recommendations on “how the mayor could shape their leadership team, structures and processes, and how they can develop a more open, engaged and creative system of governance – one better able to make the most of the city’s amazing assets.”
With the May 5th election fast approaching, Mulgan makes the case for:
“Clearly defining the ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 08, 2016
This week, the Ecological Society of America released a special issue of its Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment journal exploring network governance and large landscape conversation. The issue includes two open access articles from Erik Johnston, Network member and director of Arizona State University’s Center for Policy Informatics.
The first article, written by Johnston, Mart T. Imperial, Sonia Ospina, Rosemary O’Leary, Jennifer Thomsen, Peter Williams and Shawn Johnson, is titled “ ...Read More
by Beth Simone Noveck —
April 07, 2016
Cross-posted from Medium Over the last three years, in a series of Masters-level courses and online (and offline) workshops and coaching programs funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The GovLab and its network of 25 world-class coaches and over 100 mentors helped 446 participants in more than a dozen US cities and thirty countries to take a public interest technology project from idea to implementation. In the process, we’ve learned a lot about the need for new ways of trai...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 07, 2016
This week Network member Henry Farrell provided a rundown of “what you need to know” about the Panama Papers scandal for _The Washington Post’s _Monkey Cage blog. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists is in the process of releasing 11.5 million documents from Mossack Fonseca, a law firm based in Panama that “specializes in setting up shell corporations that can be used, for example, by people looking to hide their money from the taxman.”
Although Panama has become a “noto...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 01, 2016
At Arizona’s 29th Annual Transit Conference, Network member Erik Johnston and Network post-doc John Harlow, both of Arizona State University’s Center for Policy Informatics, will receive the Outstanding Transit Innovation Award from the Arizona Transit Association and Arizona Department of Transportation. The event is “the premier transit conference for Arizona” and features “the latest in technology, equipment, supplies, and services.”
Johnston and Harlow are receiving the award based on th...Read More
by Ana Tovar —
March 30, 2016
Last week Network Chief of Research Stefaan Verhulst and Network Coordinator Andrew Young released “ Open Data Impact: When Demand and Supply Meet.” The paper, developed by The GovLab in partnership with Omidyar Network, shares key findings about the social, economic, cultural and political impact of open data across a collection of 19 case studies on open data’s impacts from around the world. The paper provides an analytical framework for assessing the impacts of open data projects based on ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 25, 2016
This week Network member Lee Rainie and Andrew Perrin, both of Pew Research Center spoke at the 2016 What’s Next Boomer Summit in Washington, D.C. The Boomer Summit is “the nation’s leading conference for companies, experts, and thought leaders in the longevity market to meet and learn from Fortune 100 companies, leading start-ups, and established nonprofit organizations who are successfully targeting the largest and most lucrative consumer demographic in the world.” Rainie and Perrin shared ...Read More
by Anita McGahan —
March 17, 2016
By Jay Horwitz and Anita McGahan
The opening of governance is transforming large multinational companies, small enterprises, and every type of private-sector enterprise in between. At the same time, the opening of governance is calling into question whether corporations are needed at all to take up opportunities for creating value, especially when those opportunities are tied to big data.
What does it mean to open governance in the private sector? At the most basic level, the idea of open...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 16, 2016
Last week, Deborah Estrin, professor of computer science at Cornell Tech and co-founder of Open mHealth, discussed the role small data can play in improving health outcomes as the 2016 Nyquist Lecturer at the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science. The lecture series is “named in honor of Harry Nyquist, Ph.D. ‘17, an important contributor to stability theory and information theory through his research into a quantitative understanding of thermal noise, data transmission and negative...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 15, 2016
On March 21, from 5:30-7:00pm, join us at OpenGov Hub to meet, share knowledge, and explore potential collaborations with members of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance.
Convened and organized by the GovLab, and made possible by a three-year 5 million USD grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Network seeks to build an empirical foundation and fundamental understanding of how the redesign of democratic institutions influences effectiven...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 10, 2016
This week, Network member and Harvard Business School Professor Karim Lakhani and Dietmar Harhoff, the director of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, published a new book: Revolutionizing Innovation: Users, Communities, and Open Innovation. The book, released by MIT Press, features contributions from Yochai Benkler, Helena Canhão, Fred Gault, Christina Raasch and many more.
Book overview:
“The last two decades have witnessed an extraordinary growth of new model...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 08, 2016
Last week, Network member Geoff Mulgan, Oscar Townsley and Adam Price of Nesta released a new paper focused on the reform and modernization of higher education. Built from a talk given at Cardiff University on the topic, “The Challenge-Driven University: How Real-Life Problems Can Fuel Learning,” comprises two parts: 1) an examination and collection of examples of challenge-driven education models; and 2) the placement of the challenge-driven model into a broader historical perspective of uni...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 03, 2016
Last week, Henry Farrell reviewed the new book, Hacked World Order, by Adam Segal. Farrell calls it “by far the best” book written on cybersecurity in recent years.
Farrell argues that one of the reasons Segal’s book is so successful is its avoidance of the common pitfalls related to cybersecurity debates:
“There are two big reasons why cybersecurity debates are terrible: cybersecurity is highly technical across multiple dimensions, but it is also a topic that inspires high passions. The f...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 01, 2016
Least week Stefaan Verhulst, Iryna Susha and Alexander Kostura published “Data Collaboratives: Matching Demand with Supply of (Corporate) Data to solve Public Problems” on Medium. The post arose from the recent International Data Responsibility Conference, organized by the International Data Responsibility Group ( IDRG), of which the GovLab is a founding partner.
In particular, the post describes the insights uncovered during a participatory session led by Verhulst, Susha and Kostura explori...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 25, 2016
This week, Nesta shared a new paper written by Network member Geoff Mulgan. The paper, “A machine intelligence commission for the UK: how to grow informed public trust and maximise the positive impact of smart machines,” is based on a talk Mulgan gave at the Alan Turing Institute earlier this month.
Mulgan described the major arguments outlined in the paper in a blog post announcing its publication:
“This paper makes the case for creating a Machine Intelligence Commission - a new public ins...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 23, 2016
By Andrew Young and Stefaan Verhulst
Two years ago, the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance was launched to build an empirical foundation and fundamental understanding of how the redesign of democratic institutions influences effectiveness and legitimacy in governance, to the end of improving people’s lives. Much has changed since. Interest in open government has increased rapidly and the need to innovate in how we solve problems is now well understood at all levels o...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 21, 2016
Today the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society hosted a public event for Beth Simone Noveck’s new book, Smart Citizens, Smarter State. The event also convened a diverse set of researchers – including Network member Henry Farrell – to discuss the the use of “technologies of expertise” to improve governance.
Event description:
Government “of the people, by the people, for the people” expresses an ideal that resonates in all democracies. Can we get closer to this ideal using new ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 18, 2016
Yesterday, Network member Lee Rainie discussed Americans’ views on privacy with Ari Shapiro for NPR’s All Things Considered. In a discussion inspired by the controversy surrounding the Apple’s refusal to build a “backdoor” so that the FBI can access the personal data found on an iPhone, Rainie shared insights from a recent Pew Research Center report on privacy and information sharing.
Rainie highlighted the complexity of Americans’ views on privacy, especially considering the impetus for the...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 17, 2016
On March 2, Network member and Nesta CEO Geoff Mulgan will give a public lecture on “Useful (and Useless) Universities” at the Julian Hodge Lecture Theatre at Cardiff College. The lecture will draw on Mulgan’s years of experience as a practitioner of institutional innovation.
Event description:
“Geoff Mulgan, Chief Executive of Nesta, will set out a vision of the future for universities. What value do universities bring in a World of Internet access to higher education, rapidly changing ski...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 11, 2016
Network member Erik Johnston and the Center for Policy Informatics that he directs are organizing a new innovation challenge at Arizona State University called “Empathy for Our Devils.” The three-pronged initiative – currently in its second stage – encourages students to first share an idea for an issue the ASU community could address (e.g., student loans, domestic violence or homelessness); second, to join a team to develop solutions; and third, to submit a collaboratively develop solution f...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 10, 2016
Last week, the Policy Network Observatory published a new essay by Network chair Beth Simone Noveck on “The Rise of the Citizen Expert.” Noveck’s piece explores the move from “open call” crowdsourcing – which “fails to match individuals to what matters to them, or, in this case, match people to problems based on what they can do” – to smarter crowdsourcing efforts that match demand to supply of expertise.
For example: “If a city really wants to improve the chances of crafting a workable plan...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 03, 2016
This week, Harvard Business Review published a new piece by Network member Karim Lakhani on how to avoid relying only on the highest-paid person’s opinion (HiPPO) when making decisions. The piece, “The Antidote to HiPPOs: Crowd Voting,” looks at a number of examples – including t-shirt designs at Threadless and Pebble’s smartwatch Kickstarter campaign – to show how crowd voting “can vastly improve the chances that a strategic decision, such as product selection, will lead to success.”
Indeed...Read More
by Ana Tovar —
February 01, 2016
Last week, the GovLab and Omidyar Network launched Open Data’s Impact a new repository collecting original case studies on open data initiatives from around the world. The case studies were conducted by a team at the GovLab under the leadership of Network coordinator Andrew Young and Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst, and in close collaboration with Laura Bacon of Omidyar Network. In addition, Becky Hogge contributed six case studies focused on the United Kingdom. > Explore 4 way...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 28, 2016
This week, Sir Tim Berners-Lee discussed net neutrality at the Sundance Film Festival premiere of ForEveryone.net, a documentary that “connects the future of the Web with the little-known story of its birth.” Sir Tim, speaking at the Utah premiere, stated that the fight for net neutrality will “never be done,” and that, “yes, we can have things enshrined in law, but even then it won’t necessarily stop people.”
About ForEveryone.net:
“The film, which is directed by Jessica Yu, is one part b...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 27, 2016
In the latest issue of Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Network member Deborah Estrin and Ari Juels, both of Cornell Tech, explore the rise and implications of the growing small data ecosystem. The essay is part of the Dædalus Winter issue, which focuses on “The Internet” and is guest edited by David D. Clark and Yochai Benkler.
Abstract:
Reassembling Our Digital Selves by Deborah Estrin (Cornell Tech and Weill Cornell Medical College) and Ari Juels (Cornel...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 21, 2016
Today, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck appeared on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show in a segment called “ The Tinder Approach to Fixing Our Government.” On the show, Noveck discusses her time in the Obama administration as the United States’ first Deputy Chief Technology Officer and her new book Smart Citizens, Smarter State: The Technologies of Expertise and the Future of Governing.
Segment description from WNYC:
“Every couple of years, most of us go to the polls and cast a ballot for the peo...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 21, 2016
This month, Network member Karim Lakhani, Network post-doc Michael Menietti and Kevin J. Boudreau published a new paper, “Performance responses to competition across skill levels in rank-order tournaments: field evidence and implications for tournament design,” in _The RAND Journal of Economics. _The paper, which is openly accessible online, examines open innovation efforts on the TopCoder platform.
Abstract:
“Tournaments are widely used in the economy to organize production and innovation....Read More
by Ana Tovar —
January 14, 2016
This week, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck and Network Coordinator Andrew Young wrote in Governing about the way governments give out money to solve public problems. They argue that “the time has come for innovation in grantmaking. Despite its importance, we have a decidedly 20th-century system in place for deciding how we make these billions of dollars of crucial public investments. To make the most of limited funding – and help build confidence in the ability of public investments to make ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 14, 2016
Yesterday Network member Lee Rainie and the Pew Research Center released a new report on Americans’ views on privacy and information sharing. The report covers a wide variety of scenarios in which personal information could pass between different parties. The scenarios include: workplace security and tracking; health information, convenience and security; consumer loyalty cards and profiling; auto insurance discounts and monitoring; personal details and advertisements; and home activities, co...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 07, 2016
In a new op-ed for The Guardian, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck explores the potential impacts of leveraging technology to “match people to problems based on what they can do.” Invoking both the rise of match-based dating apps like Tinder and the use of prize-backed challenges to unlock dispersed expertise, Noveck advocates for more experimentation on government’s use of targeted matching based on skills and experience to the end of solving shared problems.
“In public institutions, especia...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 07, 2016
This week, Henry Farrell published the Crooked Timber Seminar on Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century. The seminar, organized by Farrell, Chris Bertram and Ingrid Robeyns, examines Piketty’s bestselling book on income equality from a diversity of angles – with section’s focusing on education, politics, power relations and more.
Farrell’s contribution to the seminar focuses particularly on the theoretical underpinning of _Capital in the 21st Century_and how that theory impacts the res...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 03, 2016
Today at CircleID, Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst and co-author Lea Kaspar of Global Partners Digital shared a number of practical recommendations for adopting next-gen governance solutions for tomorrow’s information society. The piece is a reaction to the recent United Nations’ ” World Summit on the Information Society” (WSIS) events in Geneva and Tunis and the WSIS+10 document, which “reflects on the progress made over the past decade and outlines a set of recommendations for sh...Read More
by Andrew Young —
December 22, 2015
This month, the United States Department of Education released “Future Ready Learning: Reimagining the Role of Technology in Education.” The National Education Technology Plan (NETP) – which was developed with input from a diversity of expert advisors, like Network chair Beth Simone Noveck – “sets a national vision and plan for learning enabled by technology through building on the work of leading education researchers; district, school, and higher education leaders; classroom teachers; devel...Read More
by Andrew Young —
December 21, 2015
In the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, Network member Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman the causes of, repercussions resulting from and potential solutions to the European Court of Justice’s decision to strike down the Safe Harbor agreement. The Safe Harbor agreement is a “15-year-old transatlantic arrangement that permitted U.S. companies to transfer data, such as people’s Google-search histories, outside the EU.”
In their exploration of the impetus for the ECJ’s decision, two key factors s...Read More
by Andrew Young —
December 14, 2015
As part of The Economist’s “ World in 2016” year-end series looking ahead to how the world will change and evolve in the coming year, Network member Sir Tim Berners-Lee penned a piece on “The Wider World Web.” In the article, Sir Tim explores the growing potential and interest in small data – a core interest of the Research Network – the increasing appetite for greater individual-level control of personal online data, and the opposing forces of reactionary cybercrime legislation and efforts t...Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 30, 2015
This week, Network member and Nesta CEO Geoff Mulgan shared a collection of resources – including books, papers and projects – representing decades of work on governance innovation across a number of institutions. From The Art of Public Strategy to his work on i-teams with Bloomberg, the resource distills a wide array of efforts to improve the functioning of governance in institutions around the world. Mulgan’s introduction to the resource: “I’ve worked for a couple of decades on how governme...Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 19, 2015
This week, Network member and MindLab head of research Jesper Christiansen and InWithForward’s Sarah Schulman shared the third part of their blog series on creating impacts through government innovation labs. The first part focused on fostering government innovation through internal vs. external labs, and the second part explored the question of risk in public innovation. The third and final piece asks how a mandate for change can be created within government.
Christiansen’s reflection:
“In...Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 18, 2015
This week, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck discussed her new book Smart Citizens, Smarter State and what government can learn from the tech industry with TechRepublic. The conversation touched on the rollout of the U.S. Open Government Initiative, the societal impacts of greater access to data, and the potential for collaboration and targeting opportunities for participation to help solve public problems.
Noveck on what government can learn from the tech industry:
“Intelligence capital exi...Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 12, 2015
Yesterday, Steve Lohr of _The New York Times_Bits Blog profiled Network member Deborah Estrin and her work bringing the type of small data research capabilities found in Apple iPhones to the Android ecosystem, through the newly announced ResearchStack initiative [Note: the ResearchStack code is available on GitHub]
“Shortly after Apple introduced ResearchKit, Ms. Estrin, who is also a professor of public health at Weill Cornell Medical College, started trying to bring similar capability to t...Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 11, 2015
Innovating for Healthy Urbanization, a new book edited by Network member Anita McGahan, Roy Ahn and Thomas F. Burke was officially announced this week by the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management.
From the release:
“Innovating for Healthy Urbanization is edited by three experts with deep experience in global health issues. The book argues that using the ‘innovations’ lens can provide a unique platform through which solutions for urbanization and health can emerge.
‘Sometime...Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 06, 2015
Yesterday, the NYU Tandon School of Engineering hosted Vint Cerf, one of the “fathers of the Internet” and the Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google for a discussion on “ The Coming Age of the Internet of Things.” Cerf’s keynote discussion focused particularly on the need for citizens to gain greater understanding and control of how their personal information is being used as more and more devices – from personal fitness trackers to washing machines – are connected to the I...Read More
by Stefaan Verhulst —
November 05, 2015
If you are scheduled to attend the Internet Governance Forum next week in Brazil, please join us at the workshop “NETmundial Solutions Map”, taking place from 16:30 to 18:00 on Monday, November 9 in workshop room 5 jointly organized by The GovLab and Global Partners Digital.
The NETmundial Solutions Map is a crowd-sourced Internet governance information-sharing resource launched by the NETmundial Initiative. The platform is meant to act as a tool where information on Internet governance issu...Read More
by Andrew Young —
October 23, 2015
On the World Economic Forum website, Network member and Nesta CEO Geoff Mulgan proposes ways to improve global education in the 21st century based on a greater focus on what works. Mulgan sees such an evidence-based approach as the best way to address “the triple challenge of achieving better education, greater social mobility and higher productivity.”
“Evidence; investment; new ways of developing confidence and resilience; smart technologies: many of the elements needed for truly effective ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
October 23, 2015
For the Monkey Cage blog at The Washington Post, Network member Henry Farrell examines NSA whisteblower Edward Snowden’s recently proposed anti-surveillance treaty and David Fidler’s response to Snowden’s proposal for the Council for Foreign Relations. Taking a political science rather than an ideological approach to the situation, Farrell finds the potential for the treaty to take hold to be precarious.
“[T]he proposed Snowden Treaty starts in a better place than most such movements in that...Read More
by Andrew Young —
October 22, 2015
At the the recent “ All Hands on Deck: Solving Complex Problems through Prizes and Challenges,” an event hosted by Georgetown University in collaboration with the White House, Case Foundation and Joyce Foundation to mark the 5th anniversary of Challenge.gov, the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance embarked on a fact-finding mission with the diversity of practitioners of prize-backed contests and grand challenges assembled at the event.
The event, which brought toget...Read More
by Andrew Young —
October 22, 2015
Last week, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck gave one of the keynote talks at the Rich Data Summit, “the world’s leading conference focused on turning big data into rich, meaningful data.” The talk, which closed the event, focused on “The Power of Open Data and Open Government.” The event was summarized by Melissa Bierly at the Mode Blog, highlighting four major data science insights surfaced at the event.
“3. Don’t just do well. Do something good.
‘Data by itself isn’t worth anything unless...Read More
by Andrew Young —
October 21, 2015
In a recent piece in The New York Times on essay contests being used as an alternative to traditional property sales, Network member Karim Lakhani of Harvard Business School is consulted as an expert in the field of open innovation. Although the contest in question – in which an inn in Maine was handed over to the person judged by the former owner to have written the best essay (along with a $125 entry fee) – raised many questions about the legality of the contest’s rules, the potential for b...Read More
by Andrew Young —
October 09, 2015
This week, the U.S. Government celebrated the 5th anniversary of the open innovation platform Challenge.gov with an event hosted by the Obama Administration, Case Foundation, Joyce Foundation, and Georgetown University bringing together practitioners across the prize-backed challenge landscape. To mark the occasion, the Administration also released a new Fact Sheet highlighting new commitments to expand and foster the innovation prize community. The commitments include the deployment of new c...Read More
by Andrew Young —
October 02, 2015
This week, Network member Deborah Estrin delivered a keynote talk at the Predictive Analytics World Healthcare Conference in Boston. The conference focused on “real-world examples of deployed predictive analytics,” while assembling “the industry’s leaders to deliver case studies and expertise, revealing how predictive analytics improves patient care, reduces costs and brings greater efficiencies to the healthcare industry.”
In an article summarizing the conference at Healthcare Finance News,...Read More
by Andrew Young —
October 02, 2015
In Forbes, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck describes The Governance Lab’s collaboration with the Secretary General for Planning and Open Government of Quito, Ecuador to prepare for the seemingly inevitable, and potentially devastating, eruption of volcano Cotopaxi.
“City Officials have to plan for large-scale evacuation. Yet there are those with expertise in behavioral insights — so-called ‘nudges’ — who have proven advice to share about how to communicate to avoid mass panic. Quito has to ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
September 25, 2015
In anticipation of the Internet Governance Forum meeting later this year in Brazil, Geoff Mulgan shared a new paper at Nesta on lessons to be learned from other fields of global governance that could have an impact on the future of governing the Internet. The paper, “ This is for everyone: how to govern the internet as a global commons,” is also closely related to the other work being driven by the Network on globally distributed Internet governance. Some of Mulgan’s key recommendations for ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
September 25, 2015
For Forbes, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck examines the growing prevalence and opportunity for impact of data collaboratives. From the pharmaceutical industry to research science to phone data – private actors are sharing previously withheld data in ways that benefit the public good. While the opportunity for open data to improve people’s lives is increasingly recognized, Noveck argues that data collaboratives are an area that warrants more attention and activity. She notes, “There’s a need...Read More
by Andrew Young —
September 18, 2015
On November 5th, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University, in partnership with the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), will host the Knowledge Summit. Network chair Beth Simone Noveck and Henry Farrell will both participate.
The event will focus on three central questions:
How do we produce knowledge?
How do we disseminate it?
How are we transforming the very nature of knowledge itself?
Noveck will be participate in a panel explori...Read More
by Andrew Young —
September 11, 2015
Cross-posted from Nesta
The conference will bring together a group of extremely distinguished thinkers in cognitive science, philosophy, information science and sociology to analyse the mechanisms which underlie emerging forms of networked collaboration.
Collective intelligence is a term that is increasingly being invoked in relation to networked democracy, citizen science, collaborative production, e-health etc. Our aim in this event is to combine different
perspectives in Cognitive and S...Read More
by Andrew Young —
September 11, 2015
At this week’s ConDatos conference in Santiago, Chile, Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst shared initial findings from the GovLab’s collaboration with Omidyar Network around a selection of case studies on the impacts of open data. A companion blog post on the GovLab and Omidyar websites shares many of the insights from the presentation:
Ways in which open data impacts lives
Broadly, we have identified four main ways in which open data is transforming economic, social, cultural and ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
September 09, 2015
On Medium, the Harvard Business School Digital Initiative has posted a look a detailed look at the use of crowdsourcing to benefit businesses. “The Biggest Challenge to the Future of Crowdsourcing in Business” is built around interviews and panel discussions by Network member and HBS professor Karim Lakhani. Lakhani shares insights on the history of crowdsourcing, the role of the “cognitive surplus,” motivating and sustaining crowds, and challenges to the success of crowdsourcing initiatives....Read More
by Andrew Young —
September 03, 2015
Last week, Arizona State University announced that the National Science Foundation awarded $449,000 to a collection of scholars at the university to study empathy’s effects on water usage decisions. The grant was awarded to ASU scholars in the School of Public Affairs, the W. P. Carey School of Business, the School of Social Work and the Decision Center for a Desert City, with Erik Johnston – Network member and director of ASU’s Center for Policy Informatics – acting as the principal investig...Read More
by Andrew Young —
September 03, 2015
Infinite Analytics, a data analytics firm based in India and Boston recently raised new founding to explore the application of predictive analytics beyond its existing focus areas of retail and e-commerce. Network members Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Deb Roy are both advisors to and investors in the firm.
“The genesis of Infinite Analytics can be traced back to a class in Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Akash Bhatia and Purushotham Botla were studying. A project idea was seeded in a ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
September 01, 2015
Cross-Posted from Nesta
This report examines patient organisations’ ever more critical role as knowledge brokers in an increasingly complex, data-rich healthcare system.
Key findings
Patient organisations are important examples of collective intelligence practiced in challenging conditions with the aim of tackling complex problems.
With more long term conditions and multimorbidities, more data, more available options in diagnostics, treatments, and care, knowledge is becoming one of th...Read More
by Andrew Young —
August 21, 2015
In his latest post at The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog, Network member Henry Farrell reflects on a new study released by Jennifer Shore and Jill Steinman, two undergraduate students at Harvard, on changes to Facebook’s privacy policy over the years.
Farrell not only agrees with the Shore and Steinman’s analysis that the quality of Facebook’s privacy policy has degraded, but also sees no reason to belief that this decline in quality will change course going forward.
“After Facebook iss...Read More
by Andrew Young —
August 20, 2015
This week, the GovLab released a new paper focused on the ways in which small and medium-sized enterprises and startups can and are using open data as a business asset. Open Data: A 21st Century Asset for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises authored by Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst and Robyn Caplan, “analyzes ten aspects of open data and establishes ten principles for its effective use by SMEs. Taken together, these offer a roadmap for any SME considering greater use or adoption o...Read More
by Andrew Young —
August 18, 2015
In her latest column for Governing, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck reflects on recent proposals for reducing the friction experienced by citizens when working with government to receive benefits. In particular, Noveck points to New York City Councilman Ben Kallos’ recently introduced bill that would enable city residents to “receive all benefits for which they are eligible simply by filing a tax return or applying for one benefit. Re-certifications would be automatic rather than arduous.”
...Read More
by Andrew Young —
August 14, 2015
Arizona State University’s Center for Policy Informatics, led by Network member Erik Johnston, recently presented new findings from a study of citizen science initiatives at the National Science Foundation-sponsored workshop, “ Future Technology to Preserve College Student Health and Foster Wellbeing (StudentHealth).” The project team was led by Justin Longo, a former Research Network and CPI post-doctoral fellow who is now an assistant professor and Cisco Research Chair in the Johnson-Shoya...Read More
by Andrew Young —
August 12, 2015
On the MindLab blog, Network member Jesper Christiansen shared some reflections on strategies for bringing human-centered design methodologies into the core functions of government. To help share the learnings gained from MindLab and other public innovation and design labs, MindLab, with support from Design for Europe, developed a “dialogue tool inspired by service journeys often used to illustrate the concrete interaction between the citizen and the system.”
Christiansen shares the steps i...Read More
by Andrew Young —
August 07, 2015
As part of its core mission, the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance seeks to take a broad and evolving look at how institutions and processes of governance are being (and could be) reimagined, from a diversity of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives. We are hence delighted to highlight today’s kick off of the 75th Annual Academy of Management (AOM) Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada. AOM’s 2015 program chair, Opening Governance Research Network member P...Read More
by Andrew Young —
August 06, 2015
In a new blog for BioMed Central, Network member Anita M. McGahan, Roy Ahn and Thomas F. Burke – the editors of a new book on the topic – discuss “the importance of innovations as a strategy toward possible solutions for urbanization and global health.”
“In our new book, Innovating for Healthy Urbanization, we argue that using the ‘innovations’ lens can provide a unique platform through which solutions for urbanization and health can emerge.
Sometimes ‘innovations’ can be decidedly high te...Read More
by Andrew Young —
July 21, 2015
In his latest post on the Nesta blog, Geoff Mulgan explores the so-called ‘end of power.’ He begins by laying out the tenuousness of arguments that power is being taken from the hands of those who traditionally hold it and dispersed more flatly among the populous, using the strength of government leaders like Angela Merkel and the concentration of wealth and power in the business world as examples opposing the concept.
He goes on to examine some of the explanations for why the concept is inc...Read More
by Andrew Young —
July 17, 2015
Karim Lakhani and Kevin J. Boudreau recently posted their paper, “Innovation Experiments: Researching Technical Advance, Knowledge Production and the Design of Supporting Institutions,” openly on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). The paper will also be a part of the forthcoming 16th volume of _Innovation Policy and the Economy_, edited by Josh Lerner and Scott Stern.
Abstract:
“This paper discusses several challenges in designing field experiments to better understand how organiza...Read More
by Andrew Young —
July 17, 2015
While speaking at an event at the Open Data Institute last week, Sir Tim Berners-Lee called for the UK National Health Service to open more of its data. Sir Tim argued that, “masses of clinical data can be ridiculously useful when you’re trying to do medical research.” In particular, he was referencing the potential utility of the care.data project, an effort to better share patient treatment data that is currently on hold due, at least in part, to privacy concerns.
“You should see which doc...Read More
by Andrew Young —
July 16, 2015
Last week, the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance, GovLab and Nesta hosted a public forum on data-driven and collaborative solutions to public problems. In addition to giving members of the Research Network – including Beth Simone Noveck, Stefaan Verhulst, Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Geoff Mulgan – an opportunity to share some of the insights gained over the Network’s first year and a half of inquiry into opening governance, the forum brought together a diverse community...Read More
by Stefana Broadbent —
July 01, 2015
Collective intelligence often refers to the process by which large groups of individuals pool their knowledge, data and skills to contribute in solving societal issues. By inputting environmental or clinical data, mapping territories, discussing and voting, coding and writing, citizens can contribute their knowledge and ideas to data collection tasks, analysis, decision making and public debates.
Two converging phenomena have brought to the forefront the idea of leveraging collective intelli...Read More
by Andrew Young —
June 26, 2015
In a new blog post at the Alliance for Useful Evidence, Geoff Mulgan, Network member and CEO of Nesta, and David Halpern, What Works National Advisor, propose the creation of an international clearing house for what works in practice. The idea is premised on the fact that governments around the world are faced with and attempting to address a suite of similar and similarly complex public problems – from improving education to reducing crimes – often with little knowledge-sharing across borde...Read More
by Andrew Young —
June 26, 2015
At this week’s Cannes Lions Festival, Sir Tim Berners-Lee discussed the future of artificial intelligence. In particular, he focused on the role of AI – especially in the form of algorithmic decision-making – in driving the future of business.
“‘If you were selling products 26 years ago, you had to create a web page. But having a website may not be enough, you have to have data out there,’ he said. ‘You need data on product announcements so that Gmail knows when to tell a delivery time to a ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
June 24, 2015
On Wednesday July 8th at 3:00pm, theMacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governanceand Nestawill hold a public workshop on innovations in governance.The event, Data-Driven & Collaborative Solutions: Current Findings of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance , will focus on lessons learned and remaining questions related to innovations in health and wellbeing, Internet Governance, and economic development, among other areas of public concern. In particu...Read More
by Henry Farrell —
June 19, 2015
On May 27th and 28th, a group of scholars met under the auspices of the MacArthur Foundation’s Opening Governance Research Network, at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Over the past number of years, researchers and scholars in statistics, computer science, political science, economics and political theory have tried to confront fundamental problems in collective intelligence and problem solving in different ways. These problems are the problem...Read More
by Andrew Young —
June 19, 2015
In his latest post for The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog, Henry Farrell explores the response to and implications of the recent hacking attack that has potentially uncovered sensitive personal information about a large swath of government employees. Farrell argues that the term of “cyber Pearl Harbor,” popularized by former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and others does not fit this attack.
“Even if the United States should not treat this as a ‘cyber Pearl Harbor,’ it should treat it as...Read More
by Andrew Young —
June 16, 2015
This week, The Guardian published a new piece on city-level innovation by Network member and Nesta CEO Geoff Mulgan. The article, with a particular focus on the need for increased innovation in UK cities, describes the ways in which mayors and cities are driving innovation and new forms of problem-solving around the world.
Mulgan argues that the most imaginative cities, rather than simply and exclusively placing sensors throughout the urban landscape, find ways to “link the top down and bott...Read More
by Andrew Young —
June 12, 2015
A team from Arizona State University’s Center for Policy Informatics including Network member Erik Johnston and Network post-doc Justin Longo is presenting a new research project entitled “Challenges in Revealing the Bright Shadows of the Digitally Invisible,” at next week’s Policy-Making in the Big Data Era: Opportunities and Challenges at the University of Cambridge. The project focuses on the communities that, to date, have not been included in the wave of efforts to leverage big data to ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
June 12, 2015
At Vanity Fair’s Intelligence² Digital Summit yesterday, Network Chair Beth Simone Noveck participated in a debate over the proposition that The Internet Is a Failed Utopia. Andrew Keen and Frank Pasquale argued that the Internet is indeed a failed utopia due to its effects on privacy and job creation, while Noveck and Jamie Bartlett contended that, although there are issues that we as a society need to address to improve the Internet, its capacity for increasing openness and communication, ...Read More
by Lee Rainie —
June 10, 2015
Government reformers and advocates believe that two contemporary phenomena hold the potential to change how people engage with governments at all levels and how they are served by public agencies. The first is data. There is more of it than ever before and there are more effective tools for sharing it, analyzing it, and organizing it. This creates new service-delivery possibilities for government through use of data that government agencies themselves collect and generate. The second is publi...Read More
by Andrew Young —
June 05, 2015
Prior to London’s the Web We Want Festival, inventor of the Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee addressed the UK government’s recent moves toward heightened public surveillance. In the recent Queen’s Speech, it was made known that the UK will seek to enable the tracking of web and social media use, as well as the “bulk interception” of communications.
Berners-Lee argued that citizens should play an important role in the debate around increased governmental surveillance capabilities:
“‘The discussion [i...Read More
by Andrew Young —
June 03, 2015
In her latest column for Governing, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck describes the need for more open data related to the U.S. nonprofit sector and steps made toward that end. The Cancer Fund Group – which used only a pittance of the money it collected on actual aid to recipients – is just one example of how opening nonprofit financial data can improve governance, particularly as it relates to the transparency and accountability of civil society.
Noveck describes what data should be opened a...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 29, 2015
This week, the National Portrait Gallery in London unveiled a new statue of creator of the Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee. The sculpture was created by Sean Henry.
“Henry said: ‘Tim is a very dynamic person to sculpt as he has a very active mind and is active physically, too.’
‘Above all, what came through was his strong sense of purpose … it felt important to try to capture this in the work.’
The sculpture was commissioned by the gallery to celebrate Berners-Lee’s 60th birthday, was sponsored b...Read More
by Erik Johnston —
May 29, 2015
With David Hondula
Lessig, Code 2.0, p.123
For over a decade in our classes we have taught Lawrence Lessig’s framework for thinking about how to regulate behavior in a system when multiple concurrent forces are at work. He illustrates his point by using the simple example of trying to regulate smoking. Market forces suggest that changes in the price of cigarettes should drive changes in use. Legal forces can restrict, punish, or even incentivize smokers for their behavior. Social norm...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 29, 2015
Last week, Deborah Estrin gave keynote speeches on the current and potential impacts of small data at two events in Florence, Italy: the 24th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW 2015) and the 3rd International Conference on Digital Disease Detection (DDD3).
Read more about WWW 2015 here, and about DDD here.
Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 22, 2015
This week, Mary Madden and Network member Lee Rainie of Pew Research Center released the report “Americans’ Attitudes About Privacy, Security and Surveillance.”
The report, which is the product of two Pew surveys, finds that:
“While some Americans have taken modest steps to stem the tide of data collection, few have adopted advanced privacy-enhancing measures. However, majorities of Americans expect that a wide array of organizations should have limits on the length of time that they can re...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 20, 2015
In his latest blog post at Nesta, Geoff Mulgan – recently appointed Senior Visiting Scholar at Harvard Kennedy School – looks at the “practical question of how parliaments, assemblies and governments should choose the right methods for greater public engagement in decisions.” He includes a number of requirements for successful digital democracy, including clarity of purpose, clarity on requisite scale, and clarity on identity and anonymity.
He concludes:
“Crowds can help with many tasks. Bu...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 15, 2015
At Design for Europe, Jesper Christiansen, Network member and Head of Research at MindLab, discusses the opportunities arising from public sector design labs working to reimagine governmental culture and functionality. Christiansen goes on to describe the many approaches that MindLab brings to the table to the end of designing better strategies for addressing public problems.
“A significant part of the functioning of government is the culture of decision-making and the professional expertise...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 15, 2015
At the latest New York Tech Meetup, a group from Cornell Tech presented Epicure, an application that analyzes online grocery receipts and recommends healthier options. Epicure builds off of Pushcart, a small grocery data analysis application developed by Deborah Estrin and her team at Cornell Tech’s Small Data Lab.
Learn more here.
Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 08, 2015
Geoff Mulgan’s latest post for Nesta explores the factors that influenced the outcomes of this week’s UK general election.
Mulgan notes:
“This was a fascinating and complex election. But in many respects it was quite simple, and was a surprise mainly because of the recent polls, not because of longer term trends. Although the anti-political mood fuelled the huge success for UKIP and the SNP this ended up for many as a choice between the two main parties, and two potential Prime Ministers, a...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 07, 2015
Sir Tim Berners-Lee will take part in this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The festival, which takes place June 21-27, features over 250 speakers – from Serial host Sarah Koenig to former Vice President Al Gore – who will “offer insights and inspiration from an array of creative disciplines.”
“Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the computer scientist responsible for developing the World Wide Web, will take to the stage with PHD’s Worldwide CEO Mike Cooper to look at the next grea...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 07, 2015
On July 9th through 12th, thethe growing international network of labs, units and i-teams innovating governance and public services around the worlds will convene for LabWorks 2015. The fourth-annual conference will be hosted by Nestain association with BloombergPhilanthropiesand with support from partners the GovLab, MindLab, and Mars Solutions Lab
LabWorks 2015 comprises three distinct elements aimed at fostering the continued evolution of the labs community and amplifying its impact:
G...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 05, 2015
Today, the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance released its core research agenda, Toward a Research Agenda on Opening Governance. The agenda describes the Network’s two core focus areas – data-driven governance and collaborative governance – and describes the major questions and actions that the Network and the field at large should consider in order to build a stronger evidence base for open governance. The agenda, collaboratively developed by the members of the Net...Read More
by Andrew Young —
May 01, 2015
This week, Nesta CEO and Network member Geoff Mulgan posted a note on the Nesta titled, “Finance for Impact: the case for transforming public finance to better support evidence, outcomes, engagement and innovation.” In the note, Mulgan describes a number of elements that are currently lacking in public financing systems, including: understanding costs and assets, making budgets transparent, funding innovation and more.
From Mulgan’s summary of the note:
“I show the strengths and weaknesses ...Read More
by —
April 30, 2015
At the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance’s recent meeting at Arizona State University, one particularly area of focus involved designing pathways toward meaningful metrics for open governance initiatives. Although it is unlikely that a universally applicable framework for measuring the impact of implementations of data-driven or collaborative efforts to improve governance can be created, the Network sought to develop the questions that must be addressed toward assess...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 29, 2015
On Sunday, Deborah Estrin, Network member and professor of computer science, took part in the Charter Day Weekend event at Cornell University. Estrin participated in the “Wellness, Fulfillment and Good Health” panel with Dr. Orli R. Etingin, Tanzeem Choudhury and Dr. Mark S. Lachs.
“Medically oriented apps on smartphones, Estrin said, ‘are the feedback loops of health. The way we use smartphones and wearable devices and our online behavior are all generating digital traces we call ‘small dat...Read More
by Samantha Grassle —
April 21, 2015
###Public Is Somewhat Optimistic about Open Data Initiatives Making Government More Accountable, Yet Few Say Government Effectively Shares Data with the Public
Trust in government and partisanship affect people’s views
From: The Pew Research Center
Media Contact: Dana Page, 202.419.4372, [email protected]
April 21, 2015 (Washington) – Majorities hope that more transparency and data sharing by government will help journalists cover government and make officials more accountable, but ve...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 16, 2015
Today, MindLab’s Jesper Christiansen took part in the Public 2015 Symposium in Perth, Australia. Christiansen spoke as part of a panel on Public Culture. Joining him in the discussion of “powerful collaborations & blurred boundaries” were Paul Collard, Leo Van Loon, Alison Page, and Fenella Kernebone.
Session description:
“Increasingly creative crossovers and collaborations across cultures, disciplines and sectors that weave together past and present, heritage and future, are revealing ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 08, 2015
This week, Network member Deb Roy and Daniel C. Dennett published “Our Transparent Future” on Medium, a piece that argues, “No secret is safe in the digital age. The implications for our institutions are downright Darwinian.”
Roy and Dennett believe that transparency is the single concept that best sums up the massive changes in society brought about by media inundation. With this in mind, they argue:
“The impact on our organizations and institutions will be profound. Governments, armies, c...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 07, 2015
In his latest post for the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog, Network member Henry Farrell explores the challenges related to the United States’ “laudable objective” of promoting norms to better secure cyberspace.
“In the brief, I argue that the U.S. needs to change its modus operandi if it wants to get serious about building norms in cyberspace. First, it has to internalize the norms that it wants to promote, so that, for example, it doesn’t itself engage in actions that might undermine an...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 03, 2015
Last week, Network member Geoff Mulgan and Stian Westlake of Nesta posted an open letter “for whoever turns out to be the UK’s new prime minister.”
The letter contains recommendations like:
Abolishing the Treasury, and setting up a department for growth and a real PM’s department;
Creating superministers for big policy areas like infrastructure or equality, thus making Cabinet a more useful body; and
Increasing the centre’s ability to bring on board new ideas, to experiment rigorousl...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 02, 2015
Last week, Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst participated in the “A Digital Magna Carta: Internet Governance and a New Social Contract” panel at New America NYC.
Event Description
On the heels of the Congressional decision on net neutrality, the discussion around Internet governance is moving into a decisive phase. It’s clear that modern society should address some fundamental questions on the future development of technology and its impact of society, but many issues remain open a...Read More
by Samantha Grassle —
April 02, 2015
In the wake of the NETmundial Initiative Council working meeting ( Stanford Communique), the GovLab is pleased to announce the beta release of the NETmundial Solutions Map for further public comment (from April 1 - May 1, 2015). The release is the culmination of a 6-month engagement and development strategy to ensure that the tool reflects input from a diverse set of global stakeholders. The NETmundial Solutions Map is co-developed by the GovLaband Second Rise, and is facilitated by the I...Read More
by Andrew Young —
April 01, 2015
At the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance’s recent meeting at Arizona State University, one of the four extended sessions focused on developing new strategies for training public problem-solvers. The components of open governance – namely collaborative and data-driven efforts – are likely to play an important role in the current and next generation of strategies for solving public problems. The assembled participants agreed that, although the current field of govern...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 27, 2015
Last week, Deborah Estrin gave a talk about her work at Cornell Tech’s Small Data Lab at Open mHealth’s fist ever Meetup event in New York. Specifically, Professor Estrin, one of Open mHealth’s co-founders, focused on the potential for Apple’s ResearchKit to work alongside other platforms that make use of personal health data.
From the event announcement:
“Hey Open mHealthers, this is Open mHealth’s first ever Meetup event. And we launch it in NYC! Given the recent and exciting news about...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 26, 2015
Network member Karim R. Lakhani, Harvard Business School, and Kevin J. Boudreau, London Business School, published a new paper on open and cumulative innovation in the latest edition of the journal Research Policy. The paper, “‘Open’ disclosure of innovations, incentives and follow-on reuse: Theory on processes of cumulative innovation and a field experiment in computational biology,” examines the role of disclosure and openness in society’s systems of innovation.
Abstract:
“Most of society...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 19, 2015
Cornell Tech Professor and Open mHealth co-founder Deborah Estrin will participate in a panel called “Whose Data Is It Anyway” at the Our Data Ourselves event held at New America on March 26th. Joining her on the panel are Sara M. Watson, Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society; Joel Selanko, assistant professor, Georgetown University and CEO of Magpi and moderator Sherwin Siy, the vice president of legal affairs at Public Knowledge.
Event description:
“Mobile devices are collecti...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 16, 2015
Network member Lee Rainie and Mary Madden today introduced a new report on the American publics’ thoughts on and responses to recently publicized data-collecting intelligence programs. One of the central takeaways from the survey is that:
“Some people have changed their behaviors in response to surveillance
Overall, nearly nine-in-ten respondents say they have heard at least a bit about the government surveillance programs to monitor phone use and internet use. Some 31% say they have heard...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 12, 2015
In her latest column for Governing, Network chair Beth Simone Noveck explores the way emerging tools are providing better ways for governments to collaborate with citizens, particularly in the areas of agenda-setting and brainstorming, voting, drafting and discussion and Q&A.
“As we explore the role of new technologies in changing how government makes policies and delivers services, one form of technology is emerging that has the potential to foster decision-making that’s not only more e...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 11, 2015
Yesterday, Sir Tim Berners-Lee answered questions from Reddit users on topics like cybersecurity, privacy, surveillance and even Internet memes.
One of the most popular questions asked Sir Tim the best thing to come from the Internet. He responded, “The spirit of global collaboration among all the people working on it.”
Read the full AMA here.
Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 09, 2015
On Wednesday March 11, Deb Roy will participate in the Distributed Organizations Salon hosted by the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI). He will be joined by fellow speakers Devin Balkind and Sam Klein.
Event description:
“When the complexity of collective behavior increases beyond the complexity of an individual, traditional, hierarchical organizations start to break down.
Therefore, as complexity rises globally, we need to start working on creating better decentralized social ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 05, 2015
Erik Johnston, Network member and director of the Arizona State University Center for Policy Informatics, edited a newly available book titled, Governance in the Information Era: Theory and Practice of Policy Informatics, with chapters authored by Kimberly M. Thompson, Anand Desai, David N. Ford and many others.
“Policy informatics is addressing governance challenges and their consequences, which span the seeming inability of governments to solve complex problems and the disaffection of peop...Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 01, 2015
On Wednesday March 4th, Network member Deborah Estrin will present “When N=ME: Using Small Data to Fuel, Personalize, Sustain and Study Health Behavior” at the Brain Fit Club, an initiative of the Berenson-Allen Center and the Cognitive Neurology Division of the Department of Neurology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Read More
by Andrew Young —
March 01, 2015
On February 19th and 20th, the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance held its first convening of 2015 on the campus of Arizona State University. Participants in the meeting included Network members, Network post-docs and guests from the Arizona open governance community (see full list below).
The meeting kicked off with a presentation and Q&A with Arizona State University President Michael Crow. President Crow discussed at length the ways in which ASU is reimagin...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 26, 2015
On the Nesta blog, Network member Geoff Mulgan previews the upcoming FutureFest event with a post on the value of prediction and learning.
In one of his arguments, Mulgan proposes “some algorithms are (sometimes) better predictors than the average professional.”
“The spread of predictive algorithms has made prediction more precise. Healthcare has been using algorithms for decades; so have the police and criminal justice systems. Often they have found that the algorithms are better predicto...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 26, 2015
In a new article, HBS Working Knowledge describes the way scholars and students are “unpack[ing] the digital business revolution.” In the article, professors involved in the HBS Digital Initiative, including Network member Karim Lakhani describe the new paradigm the initiative seeks to study.
“‘There’s a secular shift in the economy, and from a research perspective, more of the scholars HBS is attracting are studying digital,’ says Associate Professor Karim R. Lakhani, a member of D/I’sw fa...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 16, 2015
For the Monkey Cage blog at the Washington Post, Network member Henry Farrell responds to President Obama’s suggestion that Europeans are using privacy rules to protect their firms against U.S. competition.
Is he right?
“Not really. European businesses are no less willing to use politics to disadvantage their competitors than businesses in other parts of the world. But the new rules have less to do with discrimination against U.S. firms than European discomfort at the e-commerce model that h...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 12, 2015
Geoff Mulgan, Network member, CEO of Nesta and the 50th most connected man in Britain according to GQ UK, explored the relationship between inequality and innovation in a new blog post at Nesta.
In describing one of four “main avenues to explore,” Mulgan argues:
“[T]here needs to be a more inclusive dialogue about what innovation policy is for. Our research last year showed that the UK population was strongly supportive of new ideas, but that the standard rhetoric of technocratic innovation...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 12, 2015
Karim Lakhani, Network member and Lumry Family Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and partners at MIT, Harvard, CancerCommons.org and Global Cures organizing the Last Resort Clinic Working Group. The Working Group will explore “ways to treat terminally-ill patients through the use of novel and experimental therapies, drawing on the collaborative work of scientists around the world.”
“A ‘last resort clinic’ (LaRC) in which clinicians and bench scientist...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 02, 2015
In a guest blog for the European Commission, Network member and inventor of the Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee argues that net neutrality is “critical for the future of the Web and the future of human rights, innovation and progress in Europe.”
“Today…a key element of the openness that underpins the Web and the broader Internet is under threat. I’m talking about ‘net neutrality’ - the principle that each ‘packet’ of data must be treated equally by the network. In practice, this means that there sho...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 01, 2015
In the last in a series of three posts published on the TechTank Blog at the Brookings Institution, Network post-doc Justin Longo and Tanya Kelley, both of Arizona State University’s Center for Policy Informatics (CPI) and working under the guidance of Network member and CPI Director Erik Johnston, conclude their examination of GitHub’s capacity for fostering public sector collaboration.
“Some will dismiss GitHub as ill-suited to document collaboration, too purpose-built and inflexible, th...Read More
by Andrew Young —
February 01, 2015
From March 4-8, Brooklyn Tech Triangle will host its annual Tech Triangle U conference – “a week-long series of events to connect the tech, creative, and academic communities in the Brooklyn Tech Triangle.” This year’s focus is on “Intersections” and the ways in which technology is affecting traditional industries and real world issues.
Andrew Young, the GovLab’s associate director of research and MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance network coordinator, will take ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 28, 2015
Today, Pew Research Center and Network member Lee Rainie released the first report in their Science and Society series: “Public and Scientists Views on Science and Society.” Rainie also published a blog post describing the impetus for Pew’s exploration into Americans’ views on science.
Findings from the report include:
“Science holds an esteemed place among citizens and professionals. Americans recognize the accomplishments of scientists in key fields and, despite considerable dispute about...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 26, 2015
The Network’s Chief of Research Stefaan Verhulst and Network Coordinator Andrew Young, both of the Governance Lab @ NYU, published a set of observations, research questions and strategies regarding the use of prize-induced contests and grand challenges to help address public problems by shifting the locus of innovation from institutions to the public.
One of the central questions Verhulst and Young pose relates to the need for developing meaningful metrics for assessing the effectiveness of ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 23, 2015
The World Wide Web Foundation, founded by Network member and inventor of the Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee released its second Open Data Barometer. The Barometer comprises an in-depth report on the open data initiatives of countries around the world, key findings from that report and rankings for developed, emerging market and developing countries.
The introduction to the Barometer describes the current importance of this research:
“As the UN leads a conversation on the need for a Data Revolution...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 20, 2015
In an Interview with Forbes India, Sheena Iyengar, Network member and S.T. Lee Professor of Business at Columbia Business School, discussed “how we choose, why choice has its limitations, how different cultures see choice and the implications of her research.”
In response to a question on people’s lack of understanding regarding how choice really works, Iyengar argues:
“I think that one of the biggest [issues] no matter where you go is that people donʼt know how to choose. We would all be b...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 15, 2015
In the second in a series of three posts published on the TechTank Blog at the Brookings Institution, Network post-doc Justin Longo and Tanya Kelley, both of Arizona State University’s Center for Policy Informatics (CPI) continues their examination of GitHub’s capacity for fostering public sector collaboration. These posts were developed under the guidance of Network member and CPI director Erik Johnston.
"”While the Web has transformed many aspects of people’s lives, it has not quite fulfil...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 13, 2015
Lee Rainie, Network member and director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, and Janna Anderson shared a collection of key takeaways from the canvassing of Internet experts and scholars centered on “where things would stand by the year 2025 as technology and society kept evolving.” The non-scientific, opt-in survey of experts was conducted by Pew and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center.
The first takeaway is that, “The Internet will become ‘like elec...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 08, 2015
Henry Farrell, Network member and associate professor of political science at George Washington University, posted a new blog at Crooked Timber on challenges to left-wing parties in a society that increasingly sees improvements for the global poor and global rich, with no such improvements for the global working class.
In the European context, Farrell argues:
“European voters, mainstream European parties and European leaders have increasingly learned how to live without effective participat...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 06, 2015
Geoff Mulgan, Network member and chief executive of Nesta, posted a new prediction around how “2015 will see the creation of new political parties organised in radically different ways.”
Mulgan predicts that “the aftermath of the UK election will see the first Internet-age parties emerge in the UK, our own versions of Podemos or Democracy OS. My hope is that they will help to engage millions of people currently detached from politics, and to provide them with ways to directly influence ideas...Read More
by Andrew Young —
January 04, 2015
The GovLab and its founders Network Chair Beth Simone Noveck and Chief of Research Stefaan Verhulst published a new paper for the Centre for International Governance Innovation ( CIGI) just released our paper on “Innovations in Global Governance: Towards a Distributed Internet Governance Ecosystem.” It is part of a series of research papers supporting the Global Commission on Internet Governance ( GCIG), on which Professor Noveck is a commissioner. The GCIG was established in January 2014 “to...Read More
by Andrew Young —
December 22, 2014
Last week, the Pew Research Internet Project released a new report on The Future of Privacy, co-authored by Lee Rainie, director of the Project and member of the Research Network.
The report “is a look into the future of privacy in light of the technological change, ever-growing monetization of digital encounters, and shifting relationship of citizens and their governments that is likely to extend through the next decade.
The 2,511 respondents to the survey responded to three central prompt...Read More
by Andrew Young —
December 22, 2014
Last week, Network member and Nesta chief executive Geoff Mulgan took part in The Future of Innovation in Government Work dialogue at the Mohammed bin Rashid Center for Government Innovation in Dubai.
In his presentation, Mulgan cited paradigmatic governance innovations from around the world and described the necessary components of governance innovation, including high-level government support.
Read more here.
Read More
by Andrew Young —
December 17, 2014
This week, Network post-doc Justin Longo and Tanya Kelley, both of Arizona State University’s Center for Policy Informatics, published an examination of GitHub’s capacity for fostering public sector collaboration at Brookings, under the guidance of Network member and director of the Center for Policy Informatics Erik Johnston.
“What distinguishes GitHub are its built-in social networking functions, back-end data capture and on-board reporting, and the principles of distributed version contro...Read More
by Andrew Young —
December 17, 2014
Anita McGahan, Network member and Associate Dean of the Rotman School at the University of Toronto, recently took part in a discussion of the sharing economy, its current impacts and where it will go next for CBC Radio.
The discussion, which examines “who wins, who loses and what’s destined to change if a sharing economy is sustainable: business, society or the state,” is a “special 2-part event produced by IDEAS in partnership with The Munk School of Global Affairs. Featuring economic and ...Read More
by Andrew Young —
December 11, 2014
Network chair and executive director of the GovLab Beth Simone Noveck today published a post for the Sunlight Foundation focused on the importance of citizen participation to enable true transparency, with a variety of examples and opportunities.
“If we pushed for more true transparency, we would likely have much better ways to enable the American people to participate directly in the legislative drafting process. This is not a pipe dream. In Finland, Open Ministry helps citizens develop pr...Read More
by Andrew Young —
December 10, 2014
In the wake of the Senate Select Committee’s report on the CIA’s interrogation tactics, Network member and George Washington University associate professor Henry Farrell published a piece at the Monkey Cage on subtle and unexpected impacts to the agency as a result of new disclosures.
“In short, the CIA relies on relationships with a variety of people and in particular with academics and people with semi-academic skills in a broader ecosystem of information. Many of these relationships are l...Read More
by Andrew Young —
December 08, 2014
Deborah Estrin, Network member, professor of computer science at Cornell Tech and professor of public health at Weill Cornell Medical College, sat on a panel last week hosted at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute to help announce the creation of the Healthier Life master’s concentration, which will “confer dual degrees from Cornell and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.”
The panel discussion “featured health care industry leaders who examined opportunities for Healthier Life gra...Read More
by Andrew Young —
December 04, 2014
This week, it was announced that Network member and inventor of the World Wide Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee will be awarded the 12th Gottlieb Duttweiler Prize. The prize is “awarded at irregular intervals to people who have made outstanding contributions to the well-being of the wider community.”
Sir Tim will receive the award at the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute in Ruschlikon/Zurich on April 29, 2015.
Read the full announcement here.
Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 30, 2014
Network member and Harvard Business School professor Karim Lakhani and fellow HBS professor Marco Iansiti recently led a webinar on the implications of the Internet of Things on industry.
In the webinar, Lakhani and Iansiti “held a discussion on the impact of the Internet of Things, examining the opportunities as well as the threats this new wave of technology creates. They described how leading companies, like GE, are acting to seize new opportunities, highlighting the challenges and tradeo...Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 24, 2014
On the Harvard Business Review blog, Network member and chief executive of the Danish Design Center Christian Bason and deputy chief executive of Nesta Philip Colligan discuss the emerging paradigm of government as the “new hotbed of social innovation” where innovators are “bringing new knowledge and practices to the craft of governing and policy making; drawing on human-centered design, user engagement, open innovation, and cross-sector collaboration; and using data, evidence, and insights i...Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 20, 2014
“In God we trust,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg used to say, “everyone else bring data.”
How can emerging technologies and data analytics improve life in our cities? How do we enshrine democratic discourse and citizen participation even as urban processes become more automated? What problems can — and can’t — these new tools help us solve?
Please join New America NYC and the Program on Profits & Purpose for a conversation with Harvard professors Susan Crawford and Steven Goldsmith to discus...Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 20, 2014
Edited by Christian Bason, Network member, Chief Executive of the Danish Design Centre and former head of MindLab, Design for Policy is “the first publication to chart the emergence of collaborative design approaches to innovation in public policy. Drawing on contributions from a range of the world’s leading academics, design practitioners and public managers, it provides a rich, detailed analysis of design as a tool for addressing public problems and capturing opportunities for achieving be...Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 17, 2014
Beth Simone Noveck, Network Chair and Executive Director of the GovLab, discussed the honor of receiving an Internet and Society Award from the Oxford Internet Institute on the GovLab Blog:
_“More years ago than I care to recall, I studied at Christ Church College. At that point, I came to the University of Oxford to study allied cultural policy after World War II. I was interested in the ways that each of the different post-war powers used the media of their day, ranging from film to photo...Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 17, 2014
In her latest column in Governing, Network Chair and Executive Director of the GovLab Beth Simone Noveck discusses the MacArthur Foundation Research Network’s focus on accelerating the “pace of research so we can learn better and faster when an innovation in governance works – for whom, in which contexts and under what conditions,” and the development and leveraging of “better methods for doing fast-cycle research in collaboration with government – in the wild, not in the lab.”
Noveck focus...Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 17, 2014
Network member, Chief Media Scientist at Twitter and Director of the Laboratory for Social Machines at MIT Deb Roy discussed the concept of mutual visibility and the ways that social media can help improve public life with The Hindu.
Roy:
“I think there’s huge amount of work ahead to get towards workable responsive systems for a feedback loop….The kind of social action today that you see enabled by social media, especially real-time and fast and at-scale digital networks, is best characteri...Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 17, 2014
At the KMWorld Conference on November 6th, Network member and Director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project Lee Rainie discussed the rise of embedded and wearable computing. Rainie presented Pew’s latest findings “about the internet” and put it into “organizational context with the expanding Internet of Things.”
You can view the full presentation here.
Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 16, 2014
On November 20th, Network member Deborah Estrin, Professor of Computer Science at Cornell Tech and pioneer in the field of networked sensing, will give the inaugural Mary Jean Harrold Memorial Lecture at the Georgie Tech College of Computing. The lecture, which is in honor of College of Computing professor and researcher Mary Jean Harrold, is a part of the School of Computing Science Distinguished Lecture Series, which brings “lauded educators, researchers, lecturers and industry leaders to t...Read More
by Andrew Young —
November 03, 2014
The MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance was launched in 2014 to study and develop the blueprints for more effective and legitimate democratic institutions to the end of improving people’s lives. It is part of MacArthur’s efforts to establish interdisciplinary research networks – “research institutions without walls” – on topics related primarily to human and community development.
On October 24th and 25th, the Network met in Chicago for its Workshopping Opening Gove...Read More
by Andrew Young —
September 12, 2014
We are living in an information age. Though data has always been produced, the current era has become characterized by technologies enabling the production, storage, and analysis of more data than ever before.
Despite its central role in driving innovation in a number of industries, governing institutions have not yet made the most of the opportunity afforded by data for addressing key governance issues. The leveraging of data – whether through increasing access to relevant data, improving t...Read More
by Andrew Young —
August 21, 2014
In an effort to accelerate new insights in how organizations gain authority and mandates for action, Prof. Anita McGahan, the Academy of Management’s 2015 Program Chair and member of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance announced recently the Academy’s annual meeting will focus on Opening Governance. In particular, the meeting will consider how digital technologies that expand the information and expertise available to organizational leaders improves the effective...Read More
