Policy Co-Creation in North Rhine-Westphalia (DE0026)

What is the public problem that the
commitment will address?
It is important for public administrations
to be open to innovation. Incorporating
and using knowledge and skills shared by
members of the public, businesses and
experts can result in new products,
services and business models for the
public sector. Collaboration with innovative start-ups can also play an
important role.
Spaces for innovation and experimentation have been created in many countries in recent years, in both the public
and private sectors, and the same is
true at the federal, Land and municipal
levels in Germany. The best-known
international example is the UK’s NESTA.
In North Rhine-Westphalia too, the first
good examples are in evidence, including
on the municipal scale.
If these innovative forms of cooperation
are to be established, there will be an
increased need for analogue, physical
spaces and digital spaces to accommodate dialogue and interaction.

What is the commitment?
The goal is to drive forward the continued and targeted opening of North
Rhine-Westphalia’s administration to
collaborative and co-creative processes
in the interests of cultivating innovative
projects, user-friendly services and
­solutions to identifiable challenges facing
the administration.
This commitment is intended to create
spaces in North Rhine-Westphalia for
exchange and cooperation with the
administration. Providing central physical
spaces fosters regular exchange among
the Land and municipal administrations,
start-ups and civil society and encourages
goal-oriented collaboration – unrestricted
by boundaries between disciplines,
official remits or levels of responsibility
for implementation.

How will the commitment contribute to
solving the public problem?
Real places will promote understanding of
open government and create a network
for developing new and innovative ideas.
They will provide ways to bring in external
expertise to solve challenges in public
administration, combining self-organising
engagement by members of the public
with new forms of collaboration in and
with the administration.
The plan is to create a space for new forms
of agile cooperation as a Land-level pilot
project. This innovation lab is to incubate
new methods of exchange and particularly
flexible forms of collaboration within the
Land Government. Here, administration
staff focused on specific schemes or on
subject areas will work with researchers,
professionals and civil-society players on
inter-portfolio questions and projects.
The innovation lab will also be a space in
which to strengthen cooperation between
the public administration and start-ups.
This is to involve analysing other countries’
experience of successful GovTech
initiatives, like those of Scotland and
Poland, and drawing up a plan for starting
a GovTech initiative for North RhineWestphalia – which will be road-tested
in a pilot project.
In addition, start-up pitches will be held at
public agencies as a further boost to innovative ideas and to cooperation between
the administration and start-ups.

Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values?
This commitment will foster the sharing of
information and experience and encourage
collaboration among the administrative
authorities, civil society and start-ups in
their search for innovative solutions that
will serve the administration as well as civil
society.
Spaces for exchange and cooperation
create a way of continuously breathing
life into the concept of open government.
They incorporate all three pillars – open
data, participation and cooperation – enabling their long-term interaction and the
creation of useful synergies.

11. Creating spaces for exchange and cooperation in North Rhine-Westphalia

Main Objective

“The goal is to drive forward the continued and targeted opening of North Rhine-Westphalia’s administration to collaborative and co-creative processes in the interests of cultivating innovative projects, user-friendly services and ­solutions to identifiable challenges facing the administration.

This commitment is intended to create spaces in North Rhine-Westphalia for exchange and cooperation with the administration. Providing central physical spaces fosters regular exchange among the Land and municipal administrations, start-ups and civil society and encourages goal-oriented collaboration – unrestricted by boundaries between disciplines, official remits or levels of responsibility for implementation.”

Milestones

11.1. Creating Land Government space [a physical location provided by the Government of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia] for exchange and agile cooperation

11.2. Developing a plan for a GovTech initiative and testing in a pilot project

11.3. Holding start-up pitches at administrative offices

Editorial Note: For the complete text of this commitment, please see Germany’s action plan at: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Germany_Action-Plan_2019-2021_EN.pdf.

Commitment Analysis
This commitment will establish a physical space for innovative solutions for North Rhine-Westphalia’s public administration. It seeks to join government, civil society, and business stakeholders using innovation labs and gov-tech initiatives. By focusing on new ways to collaborate between government and civil society while designing public services, the commitment is relevant to the OGP value of civic participation.

Germany has several initiatives to advance innovative, technology-driven practices in the public sector (e.g., the regOGLs discussed in Commitment 1 and the Digital Innovation Team discussed in Commitment 4). Tech4Germany [98] and Work4 Germany [99] offer fellowships for technical and civil society innovators to work within the public sector. Similar initiatives exist in other countries, some of which are well-established. Estimates suggest that there are around 20 civic innovation labs in the US alone. [100] In the UK, Nesta [101] and the Government Digital Service [102] command substantive resources to promote civic and digital innovation in the government. Germany has also established physical spaces for co-creating innovation in government and societal use of technology. [103]

Established civic and technology labs in the public sector have catalyzed innovation. [104] Likewise, it is believed that physical proximity and creative spaces can spur more innovation within and between organizations. [105] Successful early experience with the Tech4Germany program has generated fresh ideas for improving government services through initiatives that connect civil servants and tech entrepreneurs. [106]

However, there has been increased reflection on the early initiatives’ progress and some have been scaled back or disbanded entirely. [107] Challenges include achieving a truly inclusive and balanced multistakeholder commitment; productively combining civic and technical innovation; and integrating innovations into everyday government practice. In addition, it is unclear whether the ideas produced from this commitment will contribute directly to values of open government and inclusive participation or only target a narrow band of highly-skilled tech entrepreneurs. The potential impact of this commitment is therefore minor.

The commitment leaves open whether the establishment of a collaboration space for government, civil society, and technical experts will also be accompanied by a multi-stakeholder governance model. Equitable co-hosting could invigorate this area and promise new experiences and learning. [108] An interesting reference point could be the Hague Humanity Hub, which joins representatives from the public sector, civil society, and academia to work on humanitarian issues. [109]

Commitment 11. North Rhine-Westphalia 11: Creating spaces for exchange and cooperation in NRW

Limited:

This commitment aimed to create a shared physical space for start-ups, administration, and civil society to develop GovTech applications.

Due to COVID-19, the activities were reorganized. Instead of establishing a physical space, NRW’s state administrations participated in the country-wide UpdateDeutschland hackathon, organized by the agency “Project Together.” ^[88] The planned GovTech challenge (Milestone 2) was postponed. Instead, NRW’s state administrations organized nine challenges for the UpdateDeutschland hackathon. ^[89] According to the NRW government, valuable contacts between the government and start-ups were made during UpdateDeutschland, and public sector employees gained insights on the importance of open and innovative processes. [90] NRW also organized the local hackathon UpdateNRW, involving start-ups, members of civil society, and state administrations. ^[91] After the end of the action plan period, NRW launched its own state GovTech competition on 21 June 2022. [92]