Supporting Decision Making and Policy Through Large Scale Pilots

Abstract

Under the European Commission’s ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT-PSP) so-called Large Scale Pilots (LSPs) have been launched to advance cross-border interoperability in key policy areas like eID, eHealth, eProcurement, eJustice or the Services Directive. Member States (MS) collaborated to make their existing services interoperable. The first LSPs started in 2008 and impressive results have meanwhile been achieved. Although being technical projects, key hurdles that had to be overcome wasn’t technology, but legal and operational issues, understanding the legacy and administrative cultures in the participating states, or governance of results. This paper will focus on those aspects. Taking the LSP STORK as an example, the experience made on decision making in such complex initiatives is discussed. The paper will discuss what activities preceded the piloting, like the ministerial declaration that expressed the political will, how the LSP was set up to implement it, and how it led to policy initiative like the upcoming Regulation on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market (eIDAS).

Keywords: Large Scale Pilots, e-government, Electronic Identity, STORK

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe100263