In this interview with Stefanos Kotoglou, Public Sector Tech Watch’s EC Project Officer, we learn about the what the newly launched observatory is, who it is targeted to, and why it has been created.

What is Public Sector Tech Watch?

Public Sector Tech Watch is an observatory that monitors, analyses and disseminates information on the use of emerging technologies in the European public sector. It serves as a one-stop-shop for citizens, policymakers, public officials, academics and businesses to stay informed on the latest trends about public sector innovation and to understand how these technologies can transform the public sector, improving its efficiency and the delivery of public services. The technologies that we take into account are mainly Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Blockchain, but we are also focusing on other technologies, aiming to map all developments of public sector technological innovation, always providing the latest updates.

There are already many initiatives on this topic. Why has it been created?

The Public Sector Tech Watch will further support European Commission’s actions for promoting the digitalisation of the European public sector. Great improvement has been made in the last few years, but there is still little reuse of available solutions and a lack of awareness on how emerging technologies can benefit public administrations at all levels. This translates into an inefficient use of resources, as some administrations struggle to develop their own solutions, while there is a wide collection of available cases that tackle similar challenges. This results in a generally slow progress of digital transformation of EU public administrations. In addition, we know that many initiatives around the digitalisation of the public sector have been launched at international, EU and national level, but there is no single repository of the knowledge and data produced, which remains unknown or forgotten. The risk is that people interested in this topic get lost on different websites and cannot find the right information.

The Public Sector Tech Watch has been created to fill this gap, presenting an up-to-date database of use cases on the use of technologies in the public sector, stories and reports on this topic, pooling information from different sources. The aim is to support knowledge sharing and be inspirational, contributing to a further digitalisation of public services in Europe.

How is the Public Sector Tech Watch observatory related to the work that the Joint Research Centre?

The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) is the main actor supporting the Public Sector Tech Watch on aspects related to research, like the identification and analysis of concrete use cases. The observatory itself derives from a JRC initiative – AI Watch – which was dedicated to monitoring EU’s industrial, technological, and research capacity in AI. Comparing to AI Watch, the Public Sector Tech Watch will widen the perspective to other technologies as well, such as blockchain and augmented reality, and narrow the analysis to the use of these technologies in public sector only. Of course, the two initiatives will remain strongly connected, making synergies and pooling information, as it will be done with other JRC and EC initiatives, such as GovTech.

Public Sector Tech Watch will be hosted on Joinup, as a Collection. Why Joinup?

To maximise the impact of the observatory, it is key to establish synergies with already settled networks and mechanisms in place, such as the existing JRC database on emerging technologies’ use cases. Joinup is already a well-known platform: created in 2011, it is a community platform and a one-stop-shop for shared and reusable interoperability solutions, and it already hosts some observatories, like NIFO (the National Interoperability Framework Observatory). Joinup’s role will be even more relevant in the near future: as defined in the proposal of the Interoperable Europe Act, the platform shall become the ‘Interoperable Europe Portal’, becoming a point of reference for interoperability solutions and public sector innovation in general.

Therefore, in Joinup, Public Sector Tech Watch will benefit from the learning experience of these past years and of the community base that it has already built. We will avoid duplication of platforms and resources and facilitate the user experience for the visitors.  Joinup, having this new observatory, will consolidate its role as the ‘Interoperable Europe Portal’.

What should we expect to see under this new Collection?

The Public Sector Tech Watch hosts several resources: first of all, it is a database of “use cases” on the use of technologies in the public sector, displayed both as a full list and as aggregated data in several dashboards. Then, it hosts a “Knowledge Centre” where all relevant and latest publications, reports, projects and initiatives are displayed. These materials are not exclusively developed by the European Commission. The “Knowledge Centre” hosts remarkable projects, reports and initiatives that are produced by other organisations as well, such as the OECD. Finally, there is a section for the “stories”, where you can find short articles of testimonials, and a page for all “news and events” that publishes relevant to public sector innovation news items and events.

And this will just be the beginning. The new Collection will be recurrently updated with new content and new sections will be added as the needs arise and the Collection develops. One of which will be the “Self-Reporting Functionality”, a dedicated space where public administration will be able to share first-hand their experiences and lessons learned when using emerging technologies. All stakeholders are more than welcome to browse the pages and give us their suggestions, so that we can improve it based on users’ needs. So, please stay tuned by subscribing to the Public Sector Tech Watch Collection on Joinup, follow the Joinup social media, and feel free to contact us, sharing your ideas and suggestions!