Major EU funding for digital transformation project

Cardiff University academics are part of an international consortium of researchers, from across Europe, to receive €4.7m in funding to study digital transformation in the public sector.

Part of the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, the project, Transforming into Open, Innovative and Collaborative Governments (TROPICO), will examine how governments change to promote collaboration in policy design and service delivery.

With a special emphasis on information and communication technologies (ICT), the researchers will compare existing government frameworks, and bureaucrats’ attitudes, to identify the factors promoting collaboration as well as the barriers preventing it.

Professor James Downe from the Wales Centre for Public Policy and Professor Kevin Holland from Cardiff Business School are participating in the project on behalf of Cardiff University. They will claim €412,500 of the total.

The project brings together an inter-disciplinary team of researchers in public administration, public management, political science, sociology, law, and digital engineering from 12 leading universities in 10 European countries. It runs to May 2021 and is coordinated by the University of Bergen.

The 12 project partners are: University of Bergen (Norway), Cardiff University (United Kingdom), CNRS (Pacte) - Sciences Po Grenoble (France), Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam (Netherlands), Hertie School of Governance (Germany), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), Central European University (Hungary), Roskilde Universitet (Denmark), Tallinna Tehnikaulikool (Estonia), Universidad de Zaragoza (Spain), Universität Potsdam (Germany), and Universiteit Antwerpen (Belgium).

Horizon 2020 started on 1 January 2014 and will run for seven years. With a budget of just under €80 billion, it is the largest ever research and innovation funding programme in the EU.