SENSE4US

SENSE4US Newsletter Issue No.10 now available!

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Category: Project News

Created on Thursday, 29 December 2016 13:12

SENSE4US Newsletter Issue No.10

SENSE4US Newsletter Issue No.10 is now available! You can find it on the following link: http://www.sense4us.eu/index.php/news-letter

Enjoy your reading!!

SENSE4US CONFERENCE - Policy Making in a Complex World

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Category: Project News

Created on Friday, 23 December 2016 12:58

SENSE4US CONFERENCE

Policy Making in a Complex World

The final SENSE4US conference took place on the 8th of December 2016 in Brussels, Belgium. The conference theme was “Policy Making in a Complex World - Can technology restore trust in European decision-making?” and it brought together parliamentarians, policy makers, academics and civil society members from across Europe in order to discuss a multitude of themes linked with the subject of sufficient policy-making.

The main question remained: “Can technology restore trust in European decision-making?”

It is indeed a turbulent time in global and European politics. As Ruth Fox mentioned “Trust is almost unobtainable in the sector of politics. Politicians are never greatly trusted; due to the fact that the culture of politics makes trust difficult. In no other service are there so many other professionals pointing out your misdoings to the public”. But new technologies can help support our democracy by enabling policy makers to better understand, engage and build the trust of the public when considering the policies that affect their lives. 

Speakers in Action

Oktavia Hrund who attended the conference from Iceland via webcam also took part in the discussion concerning the subject of online political discussion. Specifically, she analyzed the prevailing tendency, according to which “Politicians nowadays have the ability to reach out to a wide array of people, but in the process of digital communication, discussion fails. Even though there are so many people who follow the latest developments, they choose not to engage in conversation, because they feel disempowered.” She continued by saying “If politicians wish to win the trust of people, then they mustn’t be afraid of saying something “wrong” online, thus motivating the people to further conduct a discussion”.

During the event participants also addressed how new technologies can help support our democracy, revealing a novel path for the future of decision-making. The stakeholders were informed about how digital tools and technologies can enable policy makers’ access and summarize a wide array of relevant data, taking into account the views of citizens on policy issues and better acknowledging the implications of proposed policies. 

Moreover, the latest version of the project’s toolkit was showcased to the general public combined with a demo that gave better understanding of each tool’s use and possibilities. Specifically, the toolkit brings together the potential to help policy-makers and legislators gain insights through open data, social media sentiment and text analysis and policy simulation.

Lively conversation, exchange of knowledge from the attendees and the demonstration of the latest SENSE4US toolkit, presented some cutting edge solutions for issues faced by policy-makers. The end of the event also signaled the approaching ending of the productive SENSE4US project’s cycle, which has now completed its 39 months duration.

Final Press Release: SENSE4US Project completes lifecycle

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Category: Project News

Created on Wednesday, 28 December 2016 14:25

The final press release of the project was distributed on the 28th December 2016 at Pan-European level. The press release announced the round off of the project's lifetime as well as the outcomes of the Final Conference in Brussels that was held on 8th December 2016.

Read the Press Release

SENSE4US Conference - Policy Making in a Complex World: can technology restore trust in European decision-making?

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Category: Project News

Created on Friday, 25 November 2016 12:41

SENSE4US Conference

Policy Making in a Complex World

Can technology restore trust in European decision-making?

At a turbulent time in global and European politics, can new technologies help to better support our democracy?

At this one day conference we will be discussing with parliamentarians, policy makers, academics and civil society how digital tools and technologies might help us better understand, engage and build the trust of the public when considering the policies that affect their lives.

Date and Time: 
Thursday 8 December 2016
09:00 – 17:00 CET

Location:
Hotel Sofitel Brussels Europe
1 Place Jourdan
1040 Bruxelles, Belgium

Register to attend now!

(https://sense4usconferencebrussels.eventbrite.co.uk)

The conference will explore the following questions:

• What factors matter most in terms of building trust in the policy-making process? This is a particularly pertinent question at the moment as EU institutions grapple with how best to effectively identify and respond to citizen concerns in light of Brexit.
• Can developments in big, open and linked data (BOLD) improve policy-making, for example in relation to policy modelling and simulation, and what are the challenges in a democratic context?
• Can new models of co-creation help build trust in the policy and legislative process through participatory design?
• Do new developments and innovations in the technology field mean we are on the verge of a new era of ‘anticipatory governance’?

Speakers will include:

• Kaja Kallas, MEP, Estonia
• Cat Drew, Uscreates, former Policy Lab UK, Cabinet Office
• Miriam Fernandez, Research Fellow, Knowledge Management Institute, Open University
• Dr Ruth Fox, Director, Hansard Society
• Steven Ginnis, Head of Digital Research at the Social Research Institute, Ipsos Mori
• Somya Joshi, Director of Research, E-Gov Lab, University of Stockholm
• Stefan Klauser, Project Leader "Digital Society", Computational Social Science, COSS
• Alex Krasodomski-Jones, Researcher, Centre for the Analysis of Social Media (CASM), DEMOS
• Vasilis Koulolias, Director, Acting Head of Open Data Innovation, E-Gov Lab, University of Stockholm
• Dr Aron Larsson, Researcher, E-Gov Lab, University of Stockholm
• Frank Leyman, Manager of International Relations, FEDICT
• Francisco García Morán, Chief IT Advisor, European Commission
• Paul Walland, IT Innovation, Southampton University and Project Co-ordinator, Sense4us Project
• Professor Maria Wimmer, Institute for Information Systems Research, University of Koblenz

During the conference there will be an opportunity for delegates to explore the Sense4us information discovery toolbox. Sense4us is a technology research and development project, funded by the European Commission, which is developing tools for decision-makers to better find, organise, analyse and interpret information to support the development and scrutiny of policy and legislation in the future.

The Sense4us toolbox is in its infancy but it brings together tools that have the potential to help policy-makers and legislators to gain insights through open data, social media sentiment, text analysis and policy simulation. Innovations in these fields potentially offer new opportunities for Parliaments and Governments to engage and learn more about what really matters to the public, collect and analyse greater amounts of data more quickly than ever, find and reach out to stakeholders beyond the ‘usual suspects’, and evaluate policy options by simulating a range of potential outcomes through dynamic policy models.