Action 2.1 of the ISA² programme has initiated the development of a new Core Vocabulary: the Core Public Organisation Vocabulary (CPOV). The CPOV aims to become a simplified, re-usable and extensible data model that captures the fundamental characteristics of a public organisation. Public organisations will be able to use and extend the CPOV when developing systems, exchanging information, integrating data or publishing open data. More specifically, the CPOV aims to support the following use cases:

	Facilitate information sharing The CPOV will facilitate G2G (Government-to-Government), G2B (Government-to-Business) and G2C (Government-to-Citizen) information sharing
	Facilitate the development of common information systems The use of existing data models for the development of common information systems facilitates the development of those systems and improves their interoperability.
	Linked Open Organograms The Core Public Organisation Vocabulary has the potential to link organograms to each other and to high value data sets.
	Cross border information exchange: manage a cross-border repository of public services and organisations Public service and organisation portfolio management allows public administration to apply a holistic and systematic management across authorities.
	Find a PO by its function The public organisation portfolio facilitates discovery of which public authorities and departments are responsible for given areas of the public task.
	Increase efficiency Increase efficiencies by spotting where responsibilities and functions are duplicated or overlap.
	Keep track of the evolution of POs Keep track of many changes in the structure and responsibilities of public organisations.

In order to facilitate the development of the CPOV, an open Working Group was established. More than 50 people from 18 different countries expressed their interest in contributing to the development process. During its inaugural meeting on January 18, 2016, the Working Group agreed to deliver a draft CPOV for public review by April 2016. The group is co-chaired by representatives from the Flemish Information Agency, the IT department of the Flemish government, and the Publications Office of the EU. Phil Archer from W3C, who was involved in the earlier development of the ORG Ontology, will be the editor of the CPOV, supported by Brecht Wyns from PwC.

Should you be interested in supporting the development of this Core Vocabulary, we kindly invite you to join the Working Group by sending an E-mail to cpov@joinup.ec.europa.eu, mentioning your name and organisation. For more information on the CPOV and to follow the development process, please refer to https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/solution/core-public-organisation-vocabulary.

City/Location: Brussels