Multi-level Interoperability for ICT-enabled governance: a framework for assessing value drivers and implications for European policies

In the context of European policy and strategy about e-Government, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are seen not only as a means to improve public services, but a way to facilitate multi-level governance. As a consequence, interoperability is predominantly seen as an instrument to enable cross-border collaboration between public administrations within and among different Member States. Many initiatives and projects have been promoted and carried out during the last decade resulting in a growing number of potentially reusable best practices and benchmarks. Nevertheless, the complexity and volume of resulting projects' outcomes represent a challenge for an effective exploitation of the project results in other initiatives and context of intervention. Furthermore, despite the recognition of interoperability as a multi-facets concept (i.e. technological, organizational, and semantic), the results of the available projects seem to let emerge mainly the technological aspect of interoperability. The paper proposes an interpretative framework which aims to provide a systemic perspective and an instrument to elicit the links between interoperability and governance, outlining the various challenges that this poses. To these ends, the paper takes into consideration state of the art contributions both at academic and practitioners level; in particular it discusses the multiple dimensions of interoperability and the value drivers underpinning the conceptual and measurement framework proposed, together with its application in evaluating more specifically two case studies at cross-border, and national-city level in Europe. The paper concludes presenting the main findings of this exploratory analysis, outlining indications for future research with regard to Interoperability as a key driver for ICT-enabled governance. The conclusion points out the strategic role of interoperability in the delivery of e-Government services to local and national communities within the EU, and it expects the significance of interoperability will increase over the next few years, especially in terms of how it supports emerging city governance models and acts as a backbone of communications at a Pan-European, national and local level.

MISURACA Gianluca;  ALFANO Giuseppe;  VISCUSI Gianluigi; 

2012-03-30

Academic Conferences Limited

JRC64329

978-1-908272-01-0,   

http://academic-conferences.org/2-proceedings.htm,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC64329,