Pilot on using the European cloud infrastructure for public administrations

Topic description

Specific Challenge:

Given the complexity of our societies, public authorities need innovative means and tools that can enable them to develop better evidence-based policies. The development of such policies needs to involve local actors such as citizens and businesses, in order to better inform policy-making while ensuring higher levels of acceptance for policies and of trust in the authorities. Data analytics and usage of cloud infrastructure to gain access to shared data can help improve policy making at all levels, national but also local. Moreover, engaging citizens and local actors in the generation of data or in the analysis of 'big data' and its ethical issues can assist local governance.

The availability of open and big data, in particular as facilitated by high-performance computing (HPC) capabilities offered by the European Cloud Initiative ^[1], would provide an infrastructure with data and analytical power for the public administration. Proposals should develop new ways and methods and ethical aspects of using the cloud infrastructure by public administrations for policy modelling, policy making and policy implementation. They should also create reusable models that allow for a better, more accurate and more efficient development and management of policies related to health, emergency responses, weather warning etc.

Proposals should demonstrate the interoperability^[2], reusability or scalability of the models and analytical tools.

They should also develop a solid and realistic business plan to ensure the long-term sustainability and take-up of the results. They should consider the different legal, ethical and security aspects of the models and analytical tools, depending on what kind of data they contain/are based on. They should also consider how communities can be effectively involved in co-creation of data management and analysis. In addition, they should involve multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral teams to explore the complexity of this challenge, including the problems raised by big data uses and consideration of precautionary approaches to address such problems.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 3 and 4 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

The action will create analytical tools that enable public administrations to reuse common infrastructures and data sets for the development of better targeted and more effective evidence-based policies. It will engage citizens and businesses in the co-creation of the tools, thereby enhancing trust and boosting the perceived legitimacy of authorities.

Socio-economic science and humanities

[1]As described in the Commission Communication on the European Cloud Initiative - Building a competitive data and knowledge economy in Europe [COM(2016) 178 final]: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52016DC0178&from=EN

[2]As indicated in the Commission Communication on the European Interoperability Framework – Implementation Strategy [COM(2017) 134 final]: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52017DC0134&from=EN