The Digital Governance Challenge

This closed workshop on major governance challenges triggered by the current digital transformation is co-organized by the EUI ‘Florence School of Regulation’ and the Dauphine-PSL ‘Governance & Regulation Chair’.

We are witnessing the development and integration of a set of technologies that tend to radically transform the capabilities to process and circulate information, and therefore to coordinate. Indeed, these technologies now enable a seamless and ubiquitous access to information, a just-in-time and adaptive processing of this information at low cost, and an algorithmic way of guaranteeing compliance with rules. This represents a high potential for designing and implementing more agile and customized modes of coordination — thanks to the combination of horizontal information sharing, low cost contracting and decentralized enforcement—and of more responsive modes of governance; based on agile and pervasive digital capabilities enabling to quickly adapt to new information. It also supports more decentralized and organic mechanisms of governance, which might replace more hierarchical ones since digital systems can support self-governed collective actions and the decentralized matching of available resources with individual needs.

As a result, several traditional mechanisms of coordination are challenged. Hierarchical organizations, for instance, are questioned by horizontal, peer-based, forms of organizations that allow rapid adaptation to incremental evolutions of needs, and resilience when shocks occur. The role of the government might of course also be questioned in this overall framework.

Bringing together a group of prominent academics and practitioners from the public and private sectors, whose research or action explore the links between digital transformation and the reshuffling of governance mechanisms, this workshop aims at enabling us to deepen our understanding of their close interactions.

Six main topics will be covered during six online sessions, to be organised each Friday from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. CET, from January 15th to February 19th (with an additional 30 min informal discussion):

1. The opportunities and challenges raised by digital technologies for the economy and for the society (January 15th),
2. The transformation of political governance and public institutions (January 22nd),
3. The impact of digital technologies on social and civic life (January 29th),
4. The regulation of the digital industry (February 5th),
5. The challenges for sovereignty, security, rights, and the rule of law (February 12th)
6. Global governance and international relations (February 19th).

The objective of this workshop is threefold:

• to explore how the pillars of a European approach in this area could be developed;
• to identify the levers of a research and action program to build this approach;
• to initiate a partnership to manage a work program.

The expected outcome of this workshop will combine the production of a “white paper” aimed at framing the debate, and the elaboration of a “work program” to be carried out in the framework of an initiative to be hosted by the European University Institute and a set of partners both within and beyond the academia.

WORKSHOP'S SCHEME

Each Friday, the scheme will be the following : 

• 12:00-12:15: Keynote
• 12:15-12:30: Discussion by two discussants
• 12:30-13:10: Four short talks by experts
• 13:10-13:30 Open discussion
• 13:30-14:00 Informal discussion

The first session was however organized on a slightly different basis, as an introductory session. Each week, you'll find below the programme of the corresponding Friday session that you can download. The Zoom link is sent by e-mail to all participants.

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS AND PARTICIPANTS FOR THE OVERALL WORKSHOP SESSIONS - DEDICATED INDIVIDUAL PRESENTATIONS:

• Agustín Reyna | Director, Legal and Economic  Affairs
• Alexis Tsoukias | Scientific director, CNRS
• Andrea Renda | Head of Global Governance, Regulation, Innovation and the Digital Economy (GRID) at CEPS
• Antonio Nicita | Professor of economic policy at Rome Lumsa University
• Barbara-Chiara Ubaldi | Acting Head of the Division on Open and Innovative Governments and Head of the Digital Government and Data Unit, OECD Public Governance Directorate
• Bertin Martens | Senior economist at the Joint Research Centre (Seville) of the European Commission
• Eric Brousseau | Scientific director, Governance and Regulation Chair and Club of Regulators
• Frank Bannister | Fellow Emeritus at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
• Huy Nguyen Trieu | Co-Founder CFTE
• Jan Aart Scholte | Professor of Global Transformations and Governance Challenges at Leiden University and Co-Director of the Centre for Global Cooperation Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen
• Jean-Michel Glachant | Florence School of Regulation/RSCAS/EUI
• Joëlle Toledano | Emeritus Professor of Economy
• Margareta Chesaru | Public Affairs Manager, UiPath
• Maria Petrova | ICREA Research Professor at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra
• Martin Cave | Chair Ofgem, the UK energy regulator
• Martin Peitz | Professor of Economics, University of Mannheim and Director, Mannheim Centre for Competition and Innovation (MaCCI)
• Mérouane Debbah | Director of Huawei R&D France
• Pierre Pezziardi | Entrepreneur, author, cofounder of beta.gouv.fr
• Meryem Marzouki | Senior academic researcher in Political Sciences with the French National Scientific Research Center
• Miguel Amaral | Senior Policy Analyst - OECD
• Paul Seabright | Professor of Economics at the Toulouse School of Economics and Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse
• Robert Madelin | Chairman of FIPRA International
• Robin Mansell | Professor of New Media and the Internet, Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science
• Rolf Riemenschneider | Head of Sector "Internet of Things", DG Connect, European Commission
• Serge Abiteboul | Member of the Board of Arcep
• Sjef van Erp | Professor emeritus of European private law at Maastricht University
• Viktor Mayer-Schönberger | Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation, University of Oxford
• William E. Kovacic | Global Competition Professor of Law and Policy at George Washington University Law School
• Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye | Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Imperial College London

Workshop co-organised by the Governance and Regulation Chair and the Florence School of Regulation