The role of governments in innovation policies: scriptwriter, performer or viewer?

Abstract

While the efforts towards digitalization of public services foreground the availability of the state-of-the-art technology, their deployment at the national level requires a broader comprehension of the local context (e.g. administrative infrastructure, privacy concerns, digital health literacy levels) and main stakeholders (e.g. citizens, public and private sectors). Indeed, central to any endeavor for implementing digital innovations at scale is to understand the role of governments and governance ecosystems in integrating those technologies into national structures. For instance, in the context of health policymaking, Covid-19 pandemic has revealed how crucial it is to be able to collect and share accurate health-relevant data in a short time within and across national borders. Consequently, the implementation of digital contact tracing tools, launch of dashboards to communicate pandemic-related information and digitalization of public health services for better surveillance started to gain pace in European countries. Similarly, public agencies are increasingly interested in using digital solutions in their work, such as Artificial Intelligence, leading to a difficult trade-off between privacy and efficiency. Such endeavors to integrate digital solutions into national structures require a broad comprehension of the local context, relevant policy actors and their stakes in the system. Interest groups build barriers against digital transformation when they feel that their (privileged) position is under threat. This can happen to such an extent that policymakers may have no choice but to follow their conclusions, especially in politically sensitive areas where a possible strike can drastically reduce the chances of re-election or re-designation. In this panel, we would like to discuss this field of tension from empirical and theoretical perspectives, suggesting potential solutions.

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