ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling: Research Challenges and Future Prospects in Europe

As the role of government in the society is undergoing continuous change, consensus is starting to build around the potential that collaborative technologies have in the field of governance and policy modeling. For effective citizen empowerment and participation to become mainstream, at a greater scale, several challenges will have to be faced, which will require new tools to be developed. The research questions underlying the present paper are: which new ICT-enabled governance models and methods of monitoring, interaction, collaboration for policy making and enforcement are emerging, and which policy modelling mechanisms can be implemented in order to effectively involve citizens in decision making? The paper starts addressing these issues by defining the problem statement and discussing the changing role of the government in the Information Society, also proposing some elements for a conceptualisation of ICT for governance and policy modelling. It further presents the evolving debate on the e-Government and e-Governance agenda developments, as well as the state of the art and the limitations of research in these fields. Main emerging trends and future prospects within the evolving public sector are then anticipated in order to draw some preliminary conclusions outlining the challenges ahead and future research in the field of ICT for governance and policy modelling.