Participatory challenge platforms, like challenge.gov, 10,000 solutions at Arizona State University, and the policy challenge at Arizona State University, are examples of an emerging approach that can increase the efficiency, effectiveness, and legitimacy of the public policy development and implementation process in an increasingly complex, interconnected, and resource-constrained governance environment. It seeks to give voice to, tap into, empower, and focus the vast array of expertise, experience, and democratic surplus possessed by a diversity of individuals throughout the nation in the governance process to develop innovative and practical solutions to shared public challenges. As such, the workshop supported by this grant is designed to explore the emerging body of participatory challenges platforms with a public intent and develop an community of practice for its research and practical applications and implications in an effort to understand the design tensions and applications of platforms as an efficient, effective, and legitimate governance process. The workshop consists of a series of targeted discussions, panels, roundtables, and keynote speakers to critically reflect on and envision the future of participatory challenge platforms research and applications. The workshop will support the following specific objectives:
* Highlight the importance of the research and practice of participatory challenge platforms to governing efficiently, effectively, and legitimately in an increasingly complex, interconnected, and resource-constrained environment. * Identify the obstacles, opportunities, and best practices of designing and implementing participatory challenge platforms to address public problems, grounded in case studies. * Explore design mechanisms to foster sustainable networks of problems solvers from a diversity of backgrounds around shared interests and public problems. * Develop a vision for the future of and identify the next steps for the research and practice of participatory challenge platforms in facilitating efficient, effective, and legitimate governance processes and outcomes. * Bring together practitioners, researchers, and participants from academics, private industry, and governmental organizations.
These types of approaches will become more ubiquitous because of the broad prize authority Congress granted to all federal agencies on December 21, 2010.
Project Summary: We convened a one-day workshop to develop a detailed picture of the emerging body of participatory challenge platforms, with a special focus on those with a public intent. Participatory platforms with a public intent are an emerging democratic innovation and governance mechanism that utilizes information, communication, and computation technology to create socio-technical systems that engage, enlighten, and empower nontraditional sources of citizen participation in the process of legitimately, effectively, and efficiently addressing public issues. This effort built upon the growing interest in the use of Internet platforms using challenges and prize to encourage community engagement and use crowdsourcing to generated solutions to difficult governance problems. The emergence of participatory platforms is precipitated and supported by the recent convergence of several trends: the (a) heightening legitimacy crisis of democratic government, (b) information technology revolution and rising network society, (c) growing democratic surplus of citizens and their increasing civic participation in everyday life, (d) transition from government to governance, and (e) Open Government Initiative. These "governance challenge platforms" can create novel forms of citizen participation, increase the openness of governance, and increase both the effectiveness and legitimacy of the governing organization. Participatory platforms provide public agencies with the enhanced opportunity to engage, enlighten, and empower the citizenry and simultaneously enhance the efficiency, effectiveness, and legitimacy of the public agenda-setting, policy development, and implementation process in an increasingly complex, interconnected, globalized, and resource-constrained governance environment. As an emerging complementary civic engagement approach to traditional governance structures and processes, there is much occurring in terms of its research and practice. However, a number of obstacles to their successful adoption exist. First, since there is a minimal history of researching and conducting participatory platforms, their successful design and execution is not currently well-understood. Second, the existing legal and operational infrastructure of government was not created with participatory platforms in mind and, therefore, pose constraints on and additional costs to adopting them in practice. Finally, the ordinary citizen is typically a novice in public policymaking and administration, so engaging their effective participation and contributions requires educating and empowering citizens with the knowledge and understanding of the people, policies, processes, and protocols involved. Research and Education Activities: The Arizona State University (ASU) School of Public Affairs and Center of Policy Informatics worked with the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy and 15 partner institutions to design a national policy proposal competition in response to their Startup America Policy Challenge. Through a network of schools and organizations, The Policy Challenge asked students, faculty, practitioners, and the general public to propose innovative, viable, and actionable plans for administrative change to be implemented at the U.S. Dept. of Education, Energy, or Health & Human Services that would break down barriers to entrepreneurship and best enable the use of new technologies in education, clean energy, and healthcare, respectively. At the conclusion of The Policy Challenge, the day-long workshop Participatory Platforms with a Public Intent: Critical Reflections and Future Practices was convened on May 22, 2012 at The George Washington University in Washington, DC. The workshop brought together a diverse multidisciplinary and multisector group of about 65 people to engage in dynamic discussions grounded in specific case studies that critically reflected on and envisioned the future of participatory platforms research and practical applications. Participants included scholars; practitioners from all levels of government, including the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and U.S. Department of Energy; practitioners from the private sector; platform participants; and students from throughout the country. Findings: Given the trends, opportunities and obstacles described above, it is imperative that researchers and practitioners systematically pursue, organize, and share their knowledge and understanding of how to articulate the success and design concerns of participatory platforms, and conduct them in a manner that produces these outcomes. The workshop discussions pointed to the various stages that exist in the lifecycle of a platform, key design considerations that permeate these stages, and research questions relevant to advancing their study and practice. It created a foundation for understanding the role, function, and places for improvement for participatory platforms in the public sector. A workshop report (available on this site) provides a synthesis of these discussions which provided the input into a comprehensive framework that has been developed to chart participatory platform lifecycles and design characteristics and provide a foundation from which to pursue the systematic study and successful practice of participatory platforms. Products and Outputs: All publications that have been produced with the support of this grant have been listed in reports previously provided to the NSF.
