The government of tomorrow must be connected to continue to meet the expectations of its “customers” in the future.
Being connected means, first and foremost, being linked to these customers—citizens, associations, and businesses—who must therefore logically be placed at the center of daily operations. Additionally, it means that the government of tomorrow seeks to avoid internal and external silo formation and leverages the strengths of the various partners within its broader ecosystem, making full use of them. Finally, being connected also means that all critical processes, functions, and partnerships of government organizations are optimally aligned to meet citizens’ expectations and create value for society in an increasingly digital world.
Recent technological advances and the massive rise and adoption of data-driven new technologies offer unprecedented opportunities to better connect the government with the end users of its services. A connected government must therefore take data-driven policy making and governance a step further by fully embracing data-driven applications and new technologies such as GenAI or the Internet of Things (IoT). This will enable the government to anticipate societal trends through data (whether predictive or not) and to proactively identify and address challenges and potential crises.
The shift towards a more integrated approach and a more connected network government was already initiated during the previous legislative period, both within administrations and across the broader ecosystem of (semi-)public, private, and civil society organizations. Achieving engaged and goal-oriented collaboration across a diverse network of partners and stakeholders has proven in practice to be not always straightforward, and it represents what we see as the major challenge for the coming years with regards to addressing complex and often multidisciplinary societal changes and problems. There are still significant opportunities across policy levels to further integrate government organizations both vertically and horizontally to enhance collaboration. An interesting approach might be to revise the structure or chain of government organizations based on data flow visualizations, thereby clustering government services more logically to achieve optimized data sharing and improve collaboration across departmental (data) silos.
In the implementation of data-driven policy, the government will need to continuously (re)evaluate its role and operations for the future. It must rely extensively on the knowledge, expertise, and collective engagement of its broader ecosystem, the Quadruple Helix, where governments, businesses, academia, and citizens collaborate to roll out innovative solutions. Each government organization must therefore consider an optimal division of tasks and roles relative to its customers, partners, and other government services. The government can take on the role of a ‘platform,’ uniting the strengths of public and private partners and the civil sector within a shared governance structure that leverages each component of the ecosystem’s strengths.
This need to transform its role is not only driven by budgetary constraints and the depletion of recovery funds but is also necessary to strengthen and complement its own internal innovation capacity. Thorough engagement with citizens to gain a deep understanding of their needs and requirements, as well as close collaboration with academia, which can help develop tomorrow ‘s innovations through research and development, are crucial. Finally, the most promising and innovative technologies can be further developed and commercialized by the business world.
The role of tomorrow’s network government is primarily to provide the conditions for technological innovation and further technological development, both to improve its own operations and services and to secure the competitive position of our country within the data economy of tomorrow. To achieve this, various existing initiatives can be strengthened, and new challenges addressed:
Interoperability is the fundamental prerequisite for digital transformation and integrated collaboration. Along with an adequate underlying data infrastructure and architecture, interoperability facilitates smoother data reuse, improved (inter-governmental) collaboration, and knowledge sharing. Ultimately, it can lead to regional or national scaling of technological success stories.
In addition to interoperability, the government should actively seek regulatory and technological innovations that promote the creation of a “level playing field” within the technology sector, revising data ownership, and giving citizens more control over their own data.
The government of tomorrow also has a role in setting up regulatory sandboxes to provide ample space for innovation, testing, and experimentation, aligned with key emerging technological trends. Beyond initiating such testbeds, the government can also create regulatory frameworks to simplify the deployment of these zones.
The government should continue focusing on “trend watching” to proactively respond to the emergence of new technologies, themes, and trends (such as artificial intelligence, the metaverse, blockchain, the shift from cloud to edge computing, quantum computing, etc.). In the future, the government, its citizens, and its ecosystem partners will reap the benefits of improved inter- and intragovernmental data sharing.
Besides fostering innovation, the government of tomorrow should focus on the further application of generative artificial intelligence across all its operations. Governments should explore use cases aimed at enhancing their services, achieving time savings in digital application development, improving customer experience through chatbots, and strengthening internal operations. The rapid evolution of technology makes it challenging to predict where AI will add the most value and which use cases should be prioritized. It will be crucial to tap into available talent to further exploit AI’s potential, build, train, and maintain AI models, or to establish structural collaborations with private entities with deep AI expertise. Additionally, through e-inclusion initiatives, it should be ensured that the use of AI is not restricted to the “happy few”, but that all citizens can share in the benefits offered by this new technological revolution.
A government that wants to be connected always places its customers at the center, everywhere and at all times, and ensures intensive and structural collaboration with its network and broader ecosystem. We believe this is essential to ensure that new technologies and data applications are deployed effectively to address the major societal challenges of tomorrow and to add value across all policy areas, all levels of society, and for every citizen.
The government of tomorrow: integrated, efficient, and trustworthy
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