April 2021

The 2021 Digital Government Summit

As part of the European Commission’s flagship DigitALL Public conference, the Lisbon Council convened The 2021 Digital Government Summit: Creating Services Together, under the timely theme, How “Co-Creation,” Design Thinking and “User-Centrc” Reforms are Making Public Services Friendlier and More Effective for Citizens. Johannes Hahn, European commissioner for budget and administration, delivered a visionary keynote, offering new insight on the plans and priorities of the European Commission in public administration that go beyond the Tallinn and Berlin declarations on digital government. Sandy Speicher, chief executive officer of IDEO, shared cutting-edge insights into on how creativity and the most advanced design thinking is being used to address social challenges worldwide. Kyriakos Pierrakakis, minister of state and digital governance, discussed how the Greek government has used design thinking to radically improve digital service delivery to citizens in these difficult times and how citizens and government are working together to define better services and deliver more value to people in need.

Earlier in the day, David Osimo, director of research at the Lisbon Council, presented The Co-Creation Compass: Creating Public Value Together: From Research to Action, a new policy brief that calls for a Copernican Revolution in public service. And was joined by Erica Melloni, senior researcher at the Istituto per la Ricerca Sociale and ENLARGE project coordinator; Lise Hellebø Rykkja, professor at the department of administration and organisation theory in University of Bergen, and TROPICO project coordinator; Keith Shaw, professor at the department of social science in Northumbria University, and COGOV project coordinator; and Anna Triantafillou, head of innovation lab at Athens Technology Center and Co-VAL project coordinator. The policy brief draws on the combined research of five Horizon 2020-funded projects, Understanding Value Co-Creation in Public Services for Transforming Public Administrations (Co-VAL); Transforming into Open, Innovative and Collaboratives Governments (TROPICO); Co-Production and Co-Governance: Strategic Management, Public Value and Co-Creation in the Renewal of Public Agencies across Europe (COGOV); Energies for Local Administrations to Renovate Governance in Europe (ENLARGE); and Empowering Citizens to Transform European Public Administrations (CITADEL).

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