Capacity-Building in Digital Sector (SE0019)

It is especially important that the data that is made available also contributes practically
towards public benefit. Civil society, which has very deep and broad expertise in its specialist
areas, may thus need additional initiatives to fully be able to leverage the resource that open
data represents. Appropriate forms of collaboration are an important aspect in this respect,
for example. It is also important to consider the role this plays in developing government
policy. Enabling civil society to leverage open data to create a greater platform for analysis
and expertise in its specialist areas opens greater opportunities for civil society to come up
with proposed policies and initiatives.

It is also important that this type of innovation is not promoted for only one sector. DIGG
has therefore been commissioned to increase the capacity of the public sector to conduct
open and data-driven innovation in collaboration between research, industry and civil society.
DIGG is to trial the platform for open and data-driven innovation developed by the Swedish
Agency for Economic and Regional Growth: challengesgov.se, and to carry out
communication and promotion initiatives that seek to increase participation from start-ups,
small and medium-sized companies, civil society and other actors, e.g. international actors, on
the platform for open and data-driven innovation.

• Responsible actor: Agency for Digital Government (DIGG).
• Report to be submitted by: January 31st, 2021.
• Contributes towards OGP principles: Transparency, Technology and Innovation.

3. Promote capacity for open and data-driven innovation in collaboration between research, business and civil society

Main Objective

"It is especially important that the data that is made available also contributes practically towards public benefit. Civil society, which has very deep and broad expertise in its specialist areas, may thus need additional initiatives to fully be able to leverage the resource that open data represents. Appropriate forms of collaboration are an important aspect in this respect, for example. It is also important to consider the role this plays in developing government policy. Enabling civil society to leverage open data to create a greater platform for analysis and expertise in its specialist areas opens greater opportunities for civil society to come up with proposed policies and initiatives.

It is also important that this type of innovation is not promoted for only one sector. DIGG has therefore been commissioned to increase the capacity of the public sector to conduct open and data-driven innovation in collaboration between research, industry and civil society. DIGG is to trial the platform for open and data-driven innovation developed by the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth: challengesgov.se, and to carry out communication and promotion initiatives that seek to increase participation from start-ups, small and medium-sized companies, civil society and other actors, e.g. international actors, on the platform for open and data-driven innovation."

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

Commitment Analysis

In 2018, the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth launched the national platform challengesgov.se as part of a three-year initiative for open data. ^[23] The platform aims to increase the re-use of open data from the public administration and to highlight current societal challenges that can be solved with open and data-driven innovation. ^[24] Various challenges and contests of public interest are posted to the platform, where participating individuals and teams can propose their own innovative solutions using available public sector data. Winning solutions to these challenges and contests are posted to the platform. ^[25]

Under this commitment, the Agency for Digital Governance (DIGG) plans to use the challengesgov.se platform to encourage participation of start-ups, small and medium-sized companies, and civil society in developing data-driven innovation. ^[26] According to a DIGG representative, a number of activities will be conducted in collaboration with the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth's Startup Sweden program and the innovation agency Vinnova to increase awareness and participation. Among these activities will be DIGG's ongoing collaboration with stakeholders involved in public administration to develop a new concept for Hack4Sweden to promote open and data-driven innovation as an integral part of public administration. DIGG will test the new concept in a pilot at the end of 2020 and then launch it in 2021. ^[27] Further DIGG activities will include:

• Holding a national hackathon (part of the Hack4Sweden event) for April 2019.
• A community hearing on citizen-driven innovation for May 2019.
• A networking day on open innovation with data as a strategy at the annual conference on public space for July 2019.
• Participation in the Civic Tech Sweden "OpenHeroines" meetup to talk about DIGG's government assignment and the pilot activities on challengesgov.se for November 2019. ^[28]
• A "data lab conference" for April 2020. ^[29]
  

The commitment is relevant to the OGP value of access to information due to its focus on leveraging open data among non-government actors. Overall, the potential impact of this commitment will largely depend on the success of the implementation of DIGG's planned trial activities for the challenge.se platform as well as the utility of the data-driven solutions that emerge. However, considering that the commitment does not specify how DIGG plans to use the platform to trial and promote its initiatives, it is difficult to assess the potential impact as higher than minor. According to a representative of the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth, the agency is currently waiting for a top management decision on the scope and financing of the work and whether it will go beyond current government assignments. ^[30]

Commitment 3. Promote capacity and data-driven innovation in collaboration between research, business and civil society

● Verifiable: Yes

● Does it have an open government lens? Yes

● Potential impact: Minor

● Completion: Limited

● Did it open government? No evidence of early results yet

The government organised two ‘Hack for Sweden events’ in 2019 and 2021, fewer than the five events outlined in Sweden’s Design Report. [23] Although these events were indeed organised, the website created to foster pilot activities (challengesgov.se) is now shut down. [24] As with other commitments in this action plan, the manner of implementation has reflected a tendency to run initiatives as time-limited projects, with a start and an end, rather than reflecting a more overarching, long-term, and sustainable policy perspective. According to civil society interviewees, the impact of those events was limited, and they were not designed to be game-changing. [25] In addition to those events organised by DIGG, the government financially supported initiatives by civil society organisations such as the Open Up project, [26] organised by Civic Tech Sweden and Open Knowledge Sweden.