On open government

On his first day in Office, President Obama signed the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, based on the following principles:

• The Administration is reducing the influence of special interests by writing new ethics rules that prevent lobbyists from coming to work in government or sitting on its advisory boards.
• The Administration is tracking how government uses the money with which the people have entrusted it with easy-to-understand websites like recovery.gov, USASpending.gov, and IT.usaspending.gov.
• The Administration is empowering the public – through greater openness and new technologies – to influence the decisions that affect their lives

Open government is now a worldwide trend that OCOPOMO is encouraging

How should governments improve their policy performance?

Working with citizens, civil society organisations, businesses and other stakeholders while delivering concrete improvements in policy outcomes and quality of public services are two fundamental and viable strategies. Are there others you could suggest?

Your input on current demands for Open Government in Policy Modelling

The OCOPOMO project partners believe transparency, accountability, openness and participation are key issues. What is your opinion on the matter?

What OCOPOMO can do

The OCOPOMO project may not turn antagonists into collaborators or make enemies into friends. But it will:

PROVIDE A COMPREHENSIVE FRAMEWORK where cooperation and trust among policy-concerned parties can be maximised;
PIONEER AN “OFF THE MAINSTREAM” APPROACH to policy modelling, combined with e-government tools and advanced ICT technologies;
ENABLE YOU to bring precision and clarity to your arguments and to understand those of other stakeholder groups;
OFFER AN AGENT-BASED MODEL of macroeconomic relations encouraging stakeholders to take into account shocks and surprises from the wider policy environment.

What is the OCOPOMO project all about?

OCOPOMO - Open COllaboration for POlicy MOdelling aims at defining and demonstrating a new "off the mainstream" approach to policy modelling. The project will integrate lessons and techniques from complexity science, agent based social simulation, foresight scenario analysis and stakeholder participation in order to use models for exploring the effects of policies, so that understanding of alternative points of view can be achieved by all parties.

Policy operators and stakeholders collaborate in scenario development. Based on this, a macroeconomic agent-based simulation model will be developed, visualized and simulated through ICT and tested in pilot experiences. In a nutshell, we will develop a software supporting decision-makers in shaping policies with stakeholders.

Interest from Stakeholders

Here is a feedback we have received from a regional authority based in Cyprus

"Thank you for sending the ocopomo project. I find this project particularly interesting as I do work in regional government and in addition deal with European Programmes. I look forward to seeing more of the pilot policy modelling and scenario generation.
I have browsed through the website and the blogspot. I think there are some very good ideas in there especially on the side of forecasting best case scenarios in strategic planning as a means of ensuring policy impact. Some examples on the practical side on spatial planning are greatly anticipated!"

eParticipation Projects in Europe

The eParticipation Preparatory Action, promoted by the European Parliament, supported real-life pilot projects to demonstrate how state of the art ICT tools can make it easier for people to participate in decision-making and contribute to better legislation. The last funded projects from this action ended in 2011. Interesting lessons can be drawn for OCOPOMO e-participation policy and tools which need to enable non-specialists and citizens easier access to information abuot policy making and more opportunity to try to influence decisions that affect their lives through participation in policy modelling.