Looking into the future: scenarios for e-government in 2020

摘要

Scenario building is a technique to stimulate different perspectives and images on the future. This technique allows to better predict the evolution of a certain domain beyond short-term forecasting based on the scenarios developed. The EC co-funded project eGovRTD2020 aims to develop scenarios of e-government in 2020 and beyond. The vision is to transform the EC government landscape into a coherent community, which anticipates customer needs and leverages the potential of the diversity and innovativeness of public agencies. In this paper, we give an overview of the scenario building methodology and develop a first set of scenarios using trend analysis. Four scenarios are derived showing different futures on e-government in 2020. The scenarios contain different aspects of integration, decentralization and centralization of power and governmental departments, democratizing systems and the role of individualisms and collectivism in society. The scenarios were used as a starting point for a series of regional scenario building workshops carried out across Europe. In a next stage, the scenarios will feed into a roadmapping exercise for e-government research.