Digital Transformation and Public Policies

1From Crowdsourcing to Inclusiveness: The European Experience of Innovation Contests

For about a decade, the European Commission (EC) and the governments involved have been engaged in transforming their modes of action towards more transparency, interoperability and citizen satisfaction (European Commission 2013; Mergel and Haug 2019). This desire for metamorphosis is intrinsically linked to the deployment of new technologies. Indeed, the digital transition in the public sector is introducing new ways of working and interacting with stakeholders. The design and implementation of all public policies are affected, and this is particularly the case for policies supporting research and innovation at the European level. In 2016, the European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, Carlos Moedas, published a report entitled “Open innovation – Open science”. This report defines the principles of the concept of open innovation (OI) exposing the main directions for the future. First, the OI movement must rely on crowdsourcing (calling on the expertise or ideas of the crowd) to stimulate the development of a broad innovative ecosystem (Guittard and Schenk 2016; Renault 2017). Second, it must be inclusive: “integrating stakeholders and including citizens into innovative processes”. The innovation contests linked to the EC’s digital portal and launched during the Commission’s Horizon 2020 program are part of this dynamic (see the report: Open innovation, open science, open to ...