SEMIC 2024 Pre-Conference workshop: Digital-ready Policymaking and Semantics

Science & Technology

SEMIC 2024 Pre-Conference Workshop: Digital-ready Policymaking and Semantics

Introduction

Welcome to the SEMIC 2024 pre-conference workshop focused on Digital-ready Policymaking and Semantics. My name is JIA Sany, and together with my teammates from the Commission's Digital-Ready Policymaking team, we will guide you through an informative session divided into two main parts: digital-ready policymaking and the importance of semantics.

What is Digital-Ready Policymaking?

Digital-Ready Policymaking rethinks how we draft, design, and implement policies. It relies on a mindset shift among policymakers to consider the digital implementation of their policies from the start. This mindset encourages policymakers to collaborate closely with IT, data experts, and service managers. This collaboration ensures smoother, timelier, and cost-effective policy implementation.

Linked with Interoperability

Digital-ready policymaking is crucial under the Interoperable Europe Act, which mandates interoperability assessments starting January next year. These assessments call on public sector bodies to consider the digital and interoperability impacts of their decisions, aligning closely with the principles of digital-ready policymaking.

The Role of Semantics

Digital-ready policymaking requires semantic expertise. Legal texts need to be machine-readable, consumable, and executable, which demands structuring these texts. Here semantics play a vital role, ensuring the legal text meets the necessary standards.

The Workshop Structure

The workshop featured insightful presentations from various experts discussing the importance of reviewing existing legislation, designing new policies to be digital-ready, and transitioning legal texts into digital services. The second part zoomed into regulatory reporting, a domain-agnostic aspect of policymaking that can create efficiencies if executed correctly.

First Speaker: Rebecca King from OECD

Rebecca King presented on how Denmark prioritized existing legislation reviews and designed new policies using a project funded by the European Commission. The methodology included both quantitative and qualitative criteria to identify which legislation would benefit most from digital-readiness reviews.

Second Speaker: Benedict Lang from Germany

Benedict Lang from the German government shared their experience of integrating digital-readiness into legislative processes, including visualizations to help policymakers understand and implement these principles.

Third Speaker: Felicitas Lumia and Dr. Maran Mader

Representing both the Turingian Ministry of Finance and the University of Jena, Felicitas and Dr. Maran Mader discussed using knowledge graphs for digitalizing public services, focusing on transforming legal text into digital services.

Prof. Ashwin Itto and Prof. Monica Palmirani presented a project on regulatory reporting standards. They demonstrated methodologies for extracting and formalizing reporting requirements using AI and knowledge graphs.

Interoperable Statistical Node in Spain

Representatives from the Spanish Statistical System, including Adrian Villarino and others, discussed their journey in creating a national statistical interoperability node. The project aims to simplify data exchange across different administrative levels, inspired by data space principles.

Data Spaces and Reducing Administrative Burden

Mikal Hurban from DG Connect introduced the concept of data spaces and their potential to reduce administrative burdens. Data spaces aim to create a trusted, federated ecosystem for data sharing across sectors while ensuring legal compliance and smooth interoperability.

Keywords

  • Digital-ready policymaking
  • Interoperability
  • Semantics
  • Regulatory reporting
  • AI methodologies
  • Knowledge graphs
  • Data spaces
  • Legal-to-digital transformation
  • Spanish Statistical System
  • Data governance

FAQ

  1. What is Digital-Ready Policymaking?

    • Digital-ready policymaking rethinks how policies are designed, drafted, and implemented, emphasizing the need to consider digital aspects from the outset.

  2. How does Digital-Ready Policymaking relate to the Interoperable Europe Act?

    • The Interoperable Europe Act mandates interoperability assessments which align with digital-ready principles to ensure cohesive digital implementation.

  3. Why is semantic expertise important in Digital-Ready Policymaking?

    • Semantic expertise ensures that legal texts are machine-readable, consumable, and executable, essential for efficient digital transformation.

  4. What was the focus of the presentations in the workshop?

    • Presentations focused on reviewing and designing digital-ready legislation, transitioning legal texts to digital services, and enhancing regulatory reporting.

  5. How did the Spanish Statistical System address data exchange challenges?

    • They proposed creating a statistical interoperability node inspired by data spaces to simplify data exchange across different administrative levels.

  6. What role do data spaces play in reducing administrative burdens?

    • Data spaces create a trusted ecosystem for data sharing, ensuring legal compliance and enabling efficient data-driven regulatory reporting.

  7. What was the outcome of the project on regulatory reporting standards?

    • The project demonstrated effective methodologies for extracting and formalizing regulatory reporting requirements using AI and knowledge graphs.