The International Open Data Conference (IODC) is a biannual event to bring the global open data community together in order to learn, share, plan, and collaborate on the future of open data.

The unique nature of this event is that it gathers together in one location a diverse range of participants from the northern and southern hemispheres who are seeking to define strategies to advance open data both globally and locally.

Call for proposals open until | April 1, 2018.

Publication of conference programme | June 1, 2018

The DIGIWHIST Project Team is pleased to invite you to the Final Project Conference

Big Data with Local Impact: Using Open Data to Improve Public Procurement

hosted by Benedek Jávor, MEP

Date: 29 January 2018, 13:00-17.30

Venue: European Parliament, ASP5E1 (Altiero Spinelli building), Brussels

Are you interested in how big data can be used to support government performance and accountability? Would you like to learn more about the evidence of government favoritism in public procurement across the EU and beyond? Would you like to discover what practical tools governments, journalists and civil society members can use to better understand public procurement performance? Do you want to discuss, together with European Commission experts, how the EU can help promote greater openness and transparency in the future? Join us in Brussels to debate these and other issues as we present the DIGIWHIST project results!

See the attached agenda for more details. A light sandwich lunch will be served before the event, starting at 12:00.

IMPORTANT! You will need to provide personal details in order to access the European Parliament building (unless you possess prior authorization).

Registration deadline was January 18. Please remember to bring your ID card or passport to enter the venue.

The conference will be livestreamed on our YouTube channel, ERCAS Berlin.

Speakers and commentators:

Conference Host: Benedek Jávor, MEP, European Green Party

Pascal Boijmans, Head of Unit Administrative Capacity Building and European Solidarity Fund, DG REGIO
Francesco Calderoni (DIGIWHIST), Researcher, Transcrime (Joint Research Centre on Transnational Crime)
Carl Dolan, Director, Transparency International EU
Mihaly Fazekas (DIGIWHIST), anti-corruption expert and research fellow, University of Cambridge
Ana Gomes, MEP, Alliance of Socialists
Gavin Hayman, Executive Director, Open Contracting Partnership
Monica Macovei, MEP, European Conservatives and Reformists Group
Jean-François Junger, Deputy Head of Unit e-Government and Trust, DG CONNECT
Aram Khaghaghordyan (DIGIWHIST), anti-corruption expert, Hertie School of Governance
Friedrich Lindenberg, Investigative Journalist, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP)
Ella McPherson (DIGIWHIST), Lecturer in the Sociology of New Media and Digital Technology, University of Cambridge
Mara Mendes (DIGIWHIST), Project Manager, Open Knowledge Foundation Germany
Frank Michlik, Head of Unit Fraud & Prevention, European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF)
Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (DIGIWHIST), Professor of Democracy Studies, Hertie School of Governance, Berlin
Gustavo Piga, Professor of Economics, University of Rome
Francesca Recanatini, Senior Public Sector Specialist, World Bank
Jiri Skuhrovec (DIGIWHIST), economist, programmer and procurement expert
Nikita Stampa, Head of Unit Innovative and e-Procurement, DG GROW

We are looking forward to welcoming you in Brussels!

DIGIWHIST Project Team

DIGIWHIST Conference agenda updated Jan 29

Pulitzer Prize winners, data journalism pioneers and the investigative reporters behind the Panama Papers will be among the speakers, presenters and delegates at the tenth Global Investigative Journalism Conference. Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and human rights attorney Beatrice Mtetwa will be the keynote speakers for this conference in Johannesburg.

This will be the first time the conference is held on African soil. The conference is hosted by Wits Journalism and the Global Investigative Journalism Network from November 16 to 19.

There are over 150 panels, workshops, and special events.

The training sessions will include programming and speakers that incorporate the rich diversity of stories and methods of investigation that have emerged on the continent. Cutting edge reporting methods which are transforming journalism globally — including mobile journalism, drone reporting and virtual reality — will also be covered.

Introduction:

Over the past years, a new vision on how to measure success on public procurement has been
developed. Procurement decisions based only on price have evolved into a multicriteria approach
that considers additional dimensions such as quality and sustainability. A commonly accepted form
to express this change is the idea that procurement should achieve the best Value for Money (VfM).
In practice, this has been interpreted as the capacity to award contracts taking into consideration
economic, environmental and social dimensions of the bids using both monetary and non-monetary
criteria. Under competitive procedures or negotiations, the best VfM can be typically formalized in
an evaluation formula, a rule that assigns common values to different bid elements that are
frequently expressed in different measurement units.
However, VfM, more than a formula, is an approach and a principle which meaning, scope and
relevance is still being discussed in different forums. The Inter-American Network on Government
Procurement joins the debate and dedicates its XII Annual Conference to discuss the key elements
to understand this important concept and its integration to the different stages and modalities of
public procurement.

Organizers:

• Inter-American Network on Government Procurement
• ChileCompra
• Inter-American Development Bank
• Organization of American States

Meet @digiwhist

Our DIGIWHIST researcher Daniel Tanis (Cambridge University) will be one of the expert speakers in session 4 of the conference titled “Is integrity a good business for public procurement?”

Theme for the 73rd Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology in 2017 is: Crime, Legitimacy and Reform: Fifty Years after the President’s Commission

SUBMISSION DEADLINES

Thematic panels, individual paper abstracts, and author meets critics panels due: Friday, March 10, 2017

Posters and roundtable abstracts due: Friday, May 12, 2017

DIGIWHIST  researchers from the Università Cattolica di Santo Cuore (Milan, Italy) will be presenting findings from the project. More information to follow soon.

The international symposium IRRESISTIBLE? on 16 – 18 June 2017 in Berlin, intends to take a multi-perspective view of corruption, focusing not only on political and economic aspects, but also on social, cultural, historical, religious, artistic, philosophical, civic and journalism-related dimensions.The symposium introduces the topic and offers the opportunity to engage with experts from corruption research and the fight against corruption. The symposium is also an educational platform and means of exchange for young target groups and multipliers from Eastern partnership countries and Europe.

At the Pre-Conference Event on Friday June 16, 2017 from 13:30-16:00h our DIGIWHIST researcher Aram Khaghaghordyan will be facilitating a workshop based on DIGIWHIST research data.

Workshop 8: DIGIWHIST (EU Horizon 2020 Project): Making public tenders more transparent: how big data can be used in the fight against corruption
Some governments have led the way committing to increase transparency in public contracting and have actively taken steps to increase the amount and quality of information in the public domain. The potential to use this information to improve the efficiency of public spending, but also to hold government to account is immense. Only with widespread public engagement can this new wave of openness and big data reach its full potential. DIGIWHIST created national procurement portals for 34 countries. The goal of this workshop is to introduce the large amounts of public procurement data unlocked by DIGIWHIST and jointly explore ways through which it can be put to use in the fight against corruption.
If you would like to attend, please register via this link. There is no conference fee. Registration closes on May 7, 2017.

Governments are being transformed under the impact of the digital revolution, although the speed of change is behind that of the commercial sector. Policy-makers in all domains are facing increasing pressures to interact with citizens more efficiently, and make better decisions in the light of data flooding in all forms, sophisticated computing technologies, and analytics methods.  The hierarchical structures of governments are also being challenged as these technologies equip individuals and informal networks with the necessary tools to better participate in public decision making processes, and have a societal impact at a much faster pace than ever before.  The concepts and tools from artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), and now blockchain technologies are also likely to automate many services in the public sector, greatly increasing its efficiency but at the cost of potentially millions of jobs. ‘Smartification’ of people, devices, institutions, cities, and governments also brings constant, ubiquitous surveillance which, together with inference and recognition technologies, creates the potential to regulate human behaviour and may even threaten democracy.

The third of the Data for Policy conference series highlights ‘Government by Algorithm?’ as its main theme, while also welcoming contributions from the broader Data Science and Policy discussions.

Important Dates:

Abstract submission deadline: Monday, 8 May 2017
Notification of acceptance: Wednesday, 14 June 2017
Presenters’ registration deadline: Tuesday, 1 August 2017
Discussion Paper submission deadline: Friday, 18 August 2017
Public registration deadline: Friday, 25 August 2017
Conference: Wednesday-Thursday, 6-7 September 2017

The 5th edition of Personal Democracy Forum will serve as a platform of idea and experience exchange for people working for civic participation and transparency in public life with the help of new technologies in Central and Eastern Europe.

The jubilee edition of Personal Democracy Forum will take place on April 6-7, 2017 in the European Solidarity Centre in Gdańsk. It is planned for two days of both experts’ presentations and several interactive workshops. Keynote speeches will be interpreted and recorded in order to be published online for further use. The conference will be streamed on the conference related websites.

At this year’s PDF, the concentration is on diagnosing the democratic system – what went wrong? Did the system fail us or did we fail? What are the next steps? Find more background for this year’s main theme. PDF organizers see the need to focus around the following areas:

Democracy as a Buzzword

It seems that we define democracy in contradictory ways. Although we keep using similar words to describe it. Perhaps they do not mean anything anymore?

Revolution | Evolution | Stagnation

From enthusiasm through grassroot work to powerlessness. How can we learn from experiences of introducing the change?

Creation | Manipulation | Responsibility

When states are ineffective, citizens take matters into their own hands. What sort of challenges do we have to face in contemporary politics?

Maintenance | Sustainability | Innovation

Hopelessness and insecurity are becoming the most popular companions of CSOs. What environment should be created to expel those words from our vocabulary?

For more detailed information access the event website.

The 2017 edition of the IFIP EGOV-EPART conference, the annual conference of IFIP Working Group 8.5, continues to host five topical tracks. Two general tracks will maintain the tradition of EGOV and EPART. Three special-topics tracks expand the reach and scope of the IFIP WG 8.5 annual conference:

• The General E-Government Track serves as an umbrella for all e-government-related topics except the special-topics tracks. In particular, it also covers emerging and special topics in e-government research.
• The General eParticipation Track serves as an umbrella for all eParticipation-related topics except the special-topic tracks. It focuses on research topics regarding citizen engagement in public affairs, and, in particular, on research that studies participation facilitated by information and communication technologies.
• The Open Government & Open and Big Data Track focuses on practices and methods of transparency, accountability, public big data sharing, data for improving public value, and data analytics.
• The Policy Modeling and Policy Informatics Track focuses on supporting public policy-making with innovative ICT involving relevant stakeholders. The scope ranges from policy analysis and conceptual modeling to programming and visualization of simulation models.
• The Smart Governance, Smart Government, Smart Cities & Smart Regions Track focuses on the orchestrated interplay and balance of smart governance practices, smart public administration, smart resource and talent leverage in urban and regional spaces facilitated by novel uses of ICTs and other technologies.

Despite some intentional overlap, the five tracks cover and emphasize distinct areas of research and appeal to specific and important sub-communities within the overall IFIP WG 8.5 scholarly community. Therefore the tracks have their separate and detailed call for papers.

The Multi-Track IFIP EGOV-EPART conference will tack place at The St. Petersburg State University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics (ITMO University),

9 Lomonosova St,
St Petersburg, Russia, 191002

ITMO University is one of the leading higher education institutions in Russia, providing training and research in advanced science, humanities, engineering and technology. Founded in 1900, ITMO University has grown to an organization with over 13,000 students and earned its name “National Research University,” blending the culture of innovation and discovery with world-class education.

The E-Governance Center (eGov Centre) was launched in May 2009 as a department at the ITMO University. Its purpose is to concentrate intellectual and organizational resources in order to support the development and dissemination of eGovernment / Open Government solutions in Russia and Eurasia.

Anti-corruption enforcement is an elusive concept nowadays. The biggest questions revolve around how it differs from one country, jurisdiction or regulatory body to the next, and from one industry to another. For example, Brazil has different laws than China and Russia. Yet it also enforces these in distinct ways, a fact that has global players scrambling for an answer to a single question: How to run a profitable business without falling afoul of local legislation in high risk markets?

And that is what makes this conference unique: A razor-sharp focus on the most pertinent, country-specific anti-corruption topics of the times.

The usual suspects in the high risk realm are known. But something important has come about: Countries previously left out of the count of “high risk” markets are now often mentioned precisely in this context. To name just a few:

• In South Korea, graft and bribery have triggered massive economic and political scandals
• The French government, for its part, recently released the Sapin II law, a new anticorruption rule whose effects both nationally and internationally are as of yet unclear
• The British government’s preoccupation with Brexit could dampen its commitment to global anti-corruption enforcement and the role of the SFO, reckons the OECD

Given this increased count of countries that might nowadays be considered “high risk,” ACI’s 2017 event will feature expert panels on the most pertinent anti-corruption topics of the times in these very same markets.