Post Event Report published from the Evidence Based Policymaking in Europe Summit 2021

The convergence of Cloud, Big Data and AI has already resulted in major transformation across Government services, yet the process of policy making itself is often left behind. Five EU-funded projects: Policy Cloud, Decido, AI4PublicPolicy, DUET and Intelcomp joint forces in creating the virtual Evidence Based Policy Making in Europe event to explore major challenges, trends and opportunities to improve public sector decision making that will deliver healthier, happier places to live and work.

Digital technologies have changed the world. Today people expect faster, seamless, on-demand services from their providers, and the Government is no exception. For effective urban operations which make life easier for residents, workers and visitors, Public Sector decision making needs to become more agile, breaking down data silos to combine day-to-day tactical decisions with longer term policies and strategies. Disruptive technologies such as Digital Twins, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and High Performance Computing (HPC) unlock new opportunities for sustainable decision making through visualisations, simulations and predictions that enhance transparency, increase public support and involvement, and optimise resources.

To support this transformation, the aforementioned pan-European projects dedicated to using cloud for data-driven policy in the premier conference for government that focused purely on data and tools for decision making. Together with leading change agents from the European Commission and Local Government the event explored the new decision-making ecosystems being built by cities and administrations, including the use cases being adopted, and the innovative data and tools being adopted for modern policy making.

The event took place virtually, it engaged 112 participants on 9 December 2021 and 64 participants on day 10 December 2021. The main points addressed over the 2 days were:

• Use Cases: The speakers brought real-life examples of how they are transforming the traditionally slow deliberative policy making process in the fields of health, climate change and mobility, to one that is more agile and responsive. We heard directly from cities themselves on how they are developing better evidence-based policies which adapt as new data comes to light, and which are trusted and contributed to by relevant stakeholders who feel engaged in the process.

• Tools: We saw how city managers and policy makers are co-creating data-driven decision-making ecosystems with cutting edge tools which enable them to visualise, analyse and even predict the complex impact of decisions across multiple domains, time and space. The event was hands-on with AI, big data and digital twin demos and was inspired by what stakeholders could potentially achieve for their administration.

• Strategies: Learned how to manage legal, ethical and standards challenges and constraints in our increasingly digital world. From best practices to principles and legislation our speakers helped the audience understand and navigate the complex environment in pragmatic ways that helped them start their own journey.

The event resulted in 3 policy briefs, you can read them all here:

• Data Driven Policy Cluster publishes joint policy brief Governance Ethics for Evidence Based Policymaking

• Data Driven Policy Cluster publishes joint policy brief Policy Prediction, the Future of Evidence-Based Policymaking

• Data Driven Policy Cluster publishes joint policy brief Co-Creation and Stakeholder Engagement for Evidence Based Policymaking