Effective collaboration across government departments and with non-governmental actors is essential to good governance. In addition, effective collaboration with societal actors in public service delivery and policy-making can help governments improve their ability to address user needs and innovate their problem solving capacity. ICT is a key enabler to facilitate this. Effective engagement with societal actors can help unlock societal assets, thereby easing the resource needs on governments, allow new services and new businesses to be born and help citizens to actively participate in the decisions that affect their lives. It allows them to be involved in the co-creation of services, including their design and delivery. Collaboration, sharing and re-use between public administrations can help reduce administrative burden, waste and duplication and drive efficiency. This is the political base from which CO-CREATED project has been thought. In order to achieve the EU calls as regard co-creation approaches, it is necessary that civil servants learn more about the basic skills needed to implement a such revolutionary approach. A methodology, the CO-CREATED ones, that starting from a bottom up approach will include ICT solutions to be applied as learning innovative tools. The Strategic Partnership will manage and decide on the main project issues through the organization of four transnational meetings. At the end, three specific Intellectual Outputs will be produced. In particular, and before the final approval of these last, a testing phase will be realized through Blended mobility of adults learners. Transversally, in order to disseminate the main project outputs as well as create new collaborations with stakeholders, three Multiplier Events will be organized at specific and strategic moment of the project life.
The CO-CREATED project (CO-CREATION approaches for European civil servants: EDucational framework) foresaw a strategic partnership for innovation cooperation funded by the Erasmus Plus program (Adult education) with the aim of developing innovative actions, that included the use of ICT tools, within the public administration. The project partnership consists of 4 associations /Union of municipalities from Italy, France, Spain and Bulgaria and has directly involved 57 pilot municipalities. Thanks to the participation in the project, the administrators and employees of the municipalities involved were able to develop new knowledge and skills in the field of co-creation, European project management, active citizenship and volunteering, and improve their language skills through interaction with participants from other countries. CO-CREATED set and reached the following goals: - reduce administrative burden and waste by improving the effectiveness of the services offered and promoting transparency through collaboration with citizens; - the creation of a collaborative network, with the public sector and with external actors; - improve the effectiveness of digital technology for the elaboration of public services; - encourage greater participation in the implementation of policies and the implementation of local services through new channels and new communication methods; - strengthen institutional capacities to manage and monitor the implementation of European projects by the Municipalities. The project duration was of 36 months and included the realization of three Intellectual outputs. We started by defining the level of knowledge of municipal employees regarding co-creation initiatives, volunteering and European projects carried out by the Municipality. During this phase questionnaires were administered to approximately 100 employees of the 57 sample municipalities involved and the results were used to define a specific training plan. The training contents (including the audio-video webinars) were tested during an international mobility attended by 61 participants selected from the employees of the municipalities and the staff of the partner organizations of the project. The courses are available and downloadable from the learning platform www.cocreated.eu developed during the realization of the project Co-Created. The project also included four coordination meetings between the partners and three Multiplier events in Italy, France and Spain. In addition to the associations / Union of Municipalities, project partners, the employees and administrators of the following municipalities were directly involved: - in Spain, Seville, Nijar, Vera, Moraleda de Zafayona, Rota, Niebla, Lucena, Priego de Cordoba, Las Gabias, Peligros, Ubeda, Alhaurin de la torre, Mijas, Pilas, Utrera; - in France Saverne, Strasbourg, Billere, Saint Sebastien sur Loire, Saillans, Loos-en-Gohelle, Orvault, Paris, Bischwiller, Biot, Sceaux, Schiltigheim, Annecy, Rennes, Lingolsheim; - in Bulgaria Avren, Aksakovo, Beloslav, Byala, Valdichol, Devnya, Dolni Chiflik, Dalgopol, Kavarna, Malko Tarnovo, Pomorie, Primorsko, Sozopol, Suvorovo, Tzarevo; - in Italy Sambuca di Sicilia, Librizzi, Vita, Aragon, Porto Empedocle, Aidone, Gangi, Villafranca Sicula, Carini, Favara and Racalmuto