DECIDO Objective 3

Facilitate the active involvement of local actors in data generation, how it is analysed and used within the policy making life cycle.

The involvement of communities in the policy making process through co-creation approaches, where citizens and public organizations work together, increases legitimacy and decreases citizens’ distrust in government. Such involvement of the relevant actors (e.g. citizens, businesses, NGOs, civil servants) will build on a careful analysis of the context and on adopting and applying the right balance between many factors e.g. the questions made, the incentives proposed, the tools used.

DECIDO will provide a mixed framework including instruments, guidelines and approaches fostering both co-creation and citizen science approaches enabling an effective involvement of actors, from policy makers to citizens, in the policy lifecycle. This approach will provide a thorough understanding of the impact of the use of cloud computing and Big Data technologies in participants of value chain of evidence-based policy making with the aim of providing a set of recommendations and lessons learned that will enable public authorities to develop pathways for the introduction of such technologies and approaches.

All the pilots’ implementations will involve potential users (including public servants, citizens, businesses) in all the policy making phases, from the definition of the agenda, the design and implementation of the policy, and the evaluation of the policies implemented. Local actors will also be involved in co-creation of data management and analysis, engaging citizens and businesses in the co-creation of tools. The focus for the involvement of local actors will be on:

(1) the methodological side (e.g. co-creation of indicators),

(2) the identification of needs and priorities, and

(3) the data generation (e.g. through citizen science experiments where applicable).

They will also participate in feedback gathering and the technical validation on the tools/services for data management and analysis as applicable. Multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral teams will also be involved in the elaboration of approaches aimed at coping with the challenges raised by big data.