Photo by mythoto on Flickr

Hands up if you’ve heard the term “Living Lab” and wondered what it means. Now is your chance to find out: PEP-NET has invited some living lab experts from across the continent to take questions on the topic.

On 1^st November at 11.00 CET, there will be a one-hour live chat with representatives of Turku University in Finland, Ulster University, Northern Ireland, and Jesse Marsh, special advisor to the President of the Council of the European Living Labs Network.

All panel members (see the list below) are partners in the European Commission-financed PARTERRE project, which is assessing the viability of existing spatial planning consultation services in several European countries outside their countries of origin, and which is adopting a living lab approach to integrate them into one spatial planning consultation service.

So we are lucky to have our Living Lab aficionados in the project, and I have been kind enough to share them with the rest of PEP-NET!

When the chat starts, you will see a box on the “live chats” page (see the tab at the top of the PEP-NET blog). You will be able to participate by entering your questions there. Please note that your questions and comments will not appear immediately, as they are all approved before being published. This enables us to structure the conversation a little bit, ensuring that similar topics are discussed together.

• Tiina Ferm, Senior Lecturer (software engineeering),Turku University of Applies Sciences (TUAS). Tiina is coordinator of TWICT living lab within TUAS and founding member of Turku Innovation Corner (TICo) that coordinates living lab activities in Southwest Finland, founded by Turku University, TUAS, Åbo Akademi (Swedish speaking university) and Novia (Swedish speaking university of applied sciences) and local Science Park.
• Brendan Galbraith, Lecturer, Department of Management, University of Ulster
• Patrizia Hongisto, Senior Researcher, Aalto University School of Economics, Helsinki
• Jesse Marsh, Atelier Studio Association, Italy. Jesse is founder and co-ordinator of the Territorial Living Lab in Sicily, and Special Advisor to the President of the Council of the European Network of Living Labs. He has also published several papers on the topic of regional living labs and territorial innovation.
• Suzanne Martin, Reader, School of Health Sciences, University of Ulster, Belfast
• Maurice Mulvenna, Professor of Computer Science, Faculty of Computing and Engineering, University of Ulster, Belfast
• Olli Ojala, Lecturer, Turku University of Applied Sciences, Turku. Olli has participated in the TWICT living lab and living lab networks in Turku.
• Johnny Wallace, Director of Knowledge and Technology Transfer, Faculty of Computing and Engineering, University of Ulster, Belfast

Screenshot of vitalizing-democracy.org

As football fans worldwide roar at their televisions, the German Bertelsmann Stiftung is kicking off another prize with arguably more at stake than the World Cup. Has your project found new ways of involving underrepresented citizens? If so, you could be in with a chance of winning the Reinhard Mohn Prize 2011, with prize money of € 150,000!

If you know of a project run by a governmental organisation that deserves to win the Reinhard Mohn Prize 2011, simply visit vitalizing-democracy.org by 22^nd August to nominate it. You can also discuss projects that have been submitted so far. By the following phase, which lasts until 6^th October 2010, 20 projects will have been selected and you can continue to discuss them on the website. This will be followed by a public consultation before the prize is presented in June 2011 in Gütersloh, Germany. The person who nominates the winning project will be invited to the award ceremony.This is not only an opportunity for governmental organisations that have run successful projects: the platform is already attracting a large number of project descriptions from across the world that can serve as inspiration for other organisations that wish to follow their lead.

The Bertelsmann Stiftung renamed the annual Carl Bertelsmann Prize in honour of its founder, Reinhard Mohn, who passed away in October last year. Since being founded in 1977, the Bertelsmann Stiftung has given away around € 666 million to 700 projects. This is your chance to be the next project to benefit.

You can find full details of the eligibility criteria on the website under the “About” section. Please note that although non-governmental organisations can be involved in the delivery of nominated projects, the responsible body must be a governmental organisation and prize money can only be paid to them.

The platform for taking nominations and allowing discussion and rating of projects was created by DEMOS GmbH, a joint venture between TuTech Innovation GmbH and Binary Objects.

Webcast of conference sessions

The plenary sessions and three of the parallel sessions at the Ministerial eGovernment Conference will be webcast live and on demand this year from the conference website www.egov2009.se. In addition the ceremony for the 4^th European eGovernment Awards will most likely also be the subject of a webcast.

The programme is available on www.egov2009.se/programme

Twitter flies over Malmö 18-20 November

In addition to RSS feed, Twitter feed is available onthe Ministerial eGovernment Conference website www.egov2009.se. Participants are actively encourage to Twitter about the Informal Ministerial Meeting on eGovernment and the 5th Ministerial eGovernment Conference to use the hashtag #egov2009.

Online vote for European eGovernment Awards Public Prize

Following success of the first online vote in relation to the European eGovernment Awards 2007 in Lisbon (Portugal) the European Commission and the European eGovernment Awards Consortium decided early onto continue practicing what they preach.  The objective has been to: increase the visibility and status of public sector ICT projects in Europe; encourage good practice exchange, and; to encourage active involvement and participating in the European eGovernment Awards by the epractice.eu and wider stakeholder communities.

The online voting for the European eGovernment Awards Public Prize was therefore launched late this summer and closed on 11 November at 18:00 CET. Members of the epractice.eu community have been able to vote for their favorite cases from among the 52 European eGovernment Awards 2009 finalists.  The online vote is in addition to other ICT initiative by the awards consortium and the European Commission for a fully electronic submission process via www.epractice.eu and the remote evaluation of the received submissions by the jury in the first phase of the evaluation.

The voting is now closed but the 52 finalist cases remain published at ePractice.eu and are open to receive members’ comments.  The winner of the Public Prize will be announced at the awards ceremony on 19 November at 18:30 – and likely to the subject of a webcast.

Virtual exhibition

For the first time the European eGovernment Awards finalist are accessible online through a virtual exhibition. The virtual exhibition can be visited on www.expopolis.com (NB: for practical reasons you have to register). Naturally an electronic version of the conference exhibition catalogue will be available on www.epractice.eu/awardsmediakit as of 19 November when the Ministerial eGovernment Conference and Exhibition opens.

Other news

Ministerial tour of European eGovernment Awards Finalist stands

A ministerial tour of the European eGovernment Awards Finalists stands will take place on 18 November 2009 at the Ministerial eGovernment Conference and Exhibition. 

Finalist country fact sheets

To enhance the promotion of the European eGovernment Awards Finalists 2009 17 country factsheets from those European countries from which finalists have been selected for the European eGovernment Awards 2009. The factsheets are published in English but will be made available in the relevant national languages in the beginning of November. The fact sheets are available with other dissemination material on www.epractice.eu/en/awardsmediakit

News and background

www.epractice.eu/awards

www.egov2009.se

Danish Technological Institute/Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen – European eGovernment Awards Consortium Partner

The second wave of project deliverables consists of the following eight documents:

• Major factors shaping the development of eParticipation (D1.1b)

• Key actors in the EU in the field of eParticipation (D1.2b)

• Main benefits of the eParticipation developments in the EU (D1.3b)

• Mapping the state of play in eParticipation in the EU (D1.4b)

• Second post-workshop report (D3.2b)

• Framework for eParticipation good practice (D4.1b)

• eParticipation good practice cases (D4.2b)

• eParticipation recommendations second and third version (D5.1c)

The third and final wave is anticipated in May/June 2009 and will take into account comments by the European Commission, the project’s peer review group as well as further work conducted by the consortium partners in the intervening period.

Practicing what it is preaching, the European eParticipation Study, together with PEP-NET, will make use of the eParticipation issues unearth during the project in a joint online consultation 2-13 March 2009 (further information to follow).

Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen, Danish Technological Institute

Dear Colleagues,

Many of you may already know the European Journal of ePractice (EjeP), but do you know that the next special edition is devoted entirely to eParticipation!

The 6th issue of the Journal provides a good chance to write articles based on our work and experiences and provide an excellent opportunity to public, disseminate and most importantly to exchange experiences and ideas.

Launched in November 2007 the Journal belongs to the ePractice.eu community and is sponsored by the European Commission as part of its good practice exchange activity and is run by an independent Editorial Board.

The aim of the Journal is to reinforce the visibility of articles as well as that of professionals while strengthen the overall ePractice.eu activity. The Journal promotes the diffusion and exchange of good practice in eGovernment, eHealth and eInclusion and is available to all potential readers free of charge. The Journal currently has an audience of 50,000 professionals in Europe and beyond, and build on a community of some 14,000 members.

The deadline is 8 December, but I know that the editor for the eParticipation issue Jeremy Millard can be pursuaded to extent the deadline till the second half of December if asked nicely. Relevant links are provided below.

Call: https://www.epracticejournal.eu/info/11

Submission guidelines: https://www.epracticejournal.eu/guidelines

European Journal of ePractice: https://www.epracticejournal.eu/home

Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen

Danish Technological Insitute

The first significant fact was that an estimate of 250 representatives of mainly public bodies and councils took part in an event which was focus on what is still a niche topic. This shows that the interest in Participatory Budgeting in the UK is strong and that we can assume that there will be a number of new towns and quarters who start using PB in the next years. I had the opportunity to speak to some of the representatives of cities who already use PB and they were very clear in stating that they will keep up their efforts and that PB has to be a long term process which can not be done “right” at the first try.

Secondly the discussion of good practice cases and related inputs by speakers showed that, while all cases are clearly differentiated, PB in the United Kingdom has a number of specific attributes which distinguish it from the efforts in other countries. Most cases focused on finding a certain budget of varying size which can be solely committed to be distributed by citizens. One speaker made the, from my point of view controversial, point that if this distribution is not binding for the decision makers the effort can not be called participatory budgeting at all. It was clear that in this model only a small amount of for example a cities budget can be committed. This way of approaching PB is for example different to some cases in Germany where the whole city budgeting was up to discussion and the results where then fed into the parliamentary discussion (see for example Freiburg or Hamburg).

Another distinguishing factor was that the PB efforts presented almost exclusively depended on face to face meetings among citizens to decide over the budget in discussion. There seem to be little use of electronic tools and especially the Internet. When talking to attendees is was clear that the use of for example online tools was in their focus and that they were in some cases planning to use these tools in the future especially to get segments of the population involved who are absent in the process right now. It seems to be clear that future PB efforts will have to include different forms of media and channels to reach out to the constituency and that the Internet will be clearly one of them.

In conclusion participatory budgeting in gaining steam in the UK and the concepts and ideas get adapted to the local conditions. In certain field however, as for example with electronic participatory budgeting, there seems to be the need to keep innovate and keep and eye on the activities in other countries in Europe and over the world (which is true also in reverse).

• eParticipation good practice cases (D4.2a)
• eParticipation recommendations (D5.1a)

As part of the study’s initial analysis of eParticipation practitioner initiatives in Europe 216 cases from 18 countries and in 29 different languages have been identified to date and are initially available on our project website.

The first of three iterations of eParticipation related recommendations is also available now on our project website. At the end of the study the third and final iteration will provide a set of practical, and intellectually rigorous, recommendations. The recommendations aim to answer and specify (mainly at European level) the following:

• What should be done by whom?
• How this may be achieved?
• Which types of ICT can be used?
• How other types of media can be involved?

However, rather than attempting to provide recommendations at this early stage of the project, this first iteration pose a number of tentative questions. Questions which reflect some of the main lines of enquiry appropriate to the study and may help frame the final recommendations. The questions have arisen as a result of the work carried out to date and the current report may as a result also serve as a partial overview of the study as it currently stands.

The next wave of deliverables is foreseen for publication in October/Novermber 2008 and will include updates of all current findings. The second version of the deliverables will therefore reflect the further analysis carried out by the Consortium as well as take into account comments made by the project’s Peer Review Group and the European Commission.

All deliverables are available on the publications/public deliverables section of our project website: www.european-eparticipation.eu.

For further and related information please visit www.european-eparticipation.eu or the eParticipation and eDemocracy Network www.epractice.eu/community/eparticipation.

Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen, Business and Policy Analysis, Danish Technological Institute 

Deliverables include:

• Major factors shaping the development of eParticipation (D1.1a)
• Key actors in the EU in the field of eParticipation (D1.2a)
• Main benefits of the eParticipation developments in the EU (D1.3a)
• Mapping the state of play in eParticipation in the EU (D1.4a)
• First post-workshop report (D3.1b)
• Framework for eParticipation good practice (D4.1a)
• First newsletter (D6.3a)

 In addition the following deliverables will be available end of July:

• eParticipation good practice cases (D4.2a)
• eParticipation recommendations (D5.1a)

This first wave of deliverables will be updated for the next deliverables wave expected in October/November 2008. The second version of each deliverable will take into account comments by the European Commission and the project’s peer review group as well as further work conducted by the Consortium Partners in the intervening period.

You may view all deliverables in the publications/public deliverables section on www.european-eparticipation.eu or directly on https://195.251.218.37/eP//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=39&Itemid=2

Please note that we are continuously looking for people with involvement or experience in eParticipation at the European level who will be able to guide use to relevant eParticipation initiatives, projects, events, etc. We are especially interested in examples at the European level, that may be considered as good practice, or from which lessons can be learned.

If you have not already done so, you may wish to register for the eParticipation and eDemocracy Network on https://www.epractice.eu/community/eParticipation.

Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen, Business and Policy Analysis, Danish Technological Institute

The online consultation in Munich concerning the role of families for the city is a prime example of engaging the public authorities in direct communication with the citizens. A profound learning process on the side of the individuals working for public institutions could be observed. In the course of the discussion there were many cases of direct and productive communication between citizens and public officials which led to a deeper understanding for the issues and attitudes on both sides.

The purpose of the discourse was to discuss the state of families in the city of Munich, to collect the attitudes and ideas of parents and couples planning to have children about the situations of live for families in the city, to inform the citizens about the ongoing program to make Munich a more attractive city for families. From May 10th to 31st 2006 the DEMOS method and platform developed by TuTech was used to fulfill these tasks. A total number of 36 proposals were developed by the participants and will be integrated into the long term plan for policies on children and families.

In 1.533 contributions the 316 registered participants discussed the topic and exchanged useful tips and additional information. The general atmosphere of the discussion was very open and constructive, so that the team of moderators only had to intervene once.

In the first phase (May 10th to 14th) of the three part discussion the main aspects of the topic were identified by the citizens and discussed in general. Already in this phase many innovative ideas and suggestions were articulated by the participants. After the filtering of the main topics by the team of moderators, the discussion went into more specialized sub forums in the second phase (May 15th to 28th). The wiki-technology was used to carry over the discussion into the 36 concrete results mentioned above. In the last phase the discussion was summarized and additional information was added to the results.

In summary the project fulfilled the given tasks and produced a number of concrete results that are brought into the process of political decision making. Especially the intensive exchange of information and arguments both among citizens and between citizens and public officials was a major advantage for the city of Munich.

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