• Identify and analyze complex Open Government Data (OGD) challenges faced by business, local governments and citizens
• Identify the interdependencies, actors and networks of the chosen OGD challenge
• Evaluate the scope and viability of potential solutions that help tackle the chosen OGD challenge
• Uncover potential innovative business opportunities for tackling the chosen OGD challenge

In democracies, there is a growing vocal demand for openness and transparency but most of all for freedom. Increasingly citizens want to be able to express and govern themselves in their everyday practices; and this requires an orientation of government towards soft power, persuasion, cooperation, experimentation, innovation and empowerment. However, this is quite foreign to the practice of representative democratic government which is usually cherished for being hard, commanding, coercive and decisive. As a consequence we witness a flight from representative democracy with regard to both steering and participation.  In order to get things done in face of accelerating complexity, uncertainty and risk, governments have to delegate authority and autonomy to a variety of governance networks operating below, above, within and alongside the nation-state. At the same time more and more people uncouple from democratic government in order to practice and expand their practices of freedom under less hard and decisive conditions. New forms of participation combining online and offline activities – such as the Occupy Wall Street Movement, Indignados in Spain and the Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong - are appearing everywhere. They precisely request the kind of soft, wise and cooperative governance at close range that representative government cannot deliver. However, the problem is that the governance networks operating in ‘their way’ often lack openness and transparency and thus become the playing ground for various policy elites and sub-elites. Therefore, a crucial issue today is how to reconnect governors and governed in face of the growing demonization of party politics and the ongoing flight of citizens and policy elites from the representative processes and arenas of ‘big politics’

Local city government is the obvious level at which to begin experimenting with how to reconnect the steering systems of democratic government and good governance with citizens’ new participatory practices both online and offline . Citizens feel the proximity of the local and the city, and they want to be heard and influence their local environments. They also feel on themselves in all their r everyday practices when steering fails to deliver or take them into account as self-governing and co-governing political subjects.

Responding to the growing demand for freedom, openness and transparency also calls for innovation with respect to data collection. A virtual wave of new ‘Big Data’ methods are taking shape for gathering data about citizens’ everyday life concerns and lifestyles.  Global cities in particular are exchanging big data for improving good governance and citizens’ wellbeing. Such exchange is becoming more and more significant and important to developing new strategies and tactics for connecting with citizens and involving them in their own governance, not only at the formal political level but also in various networks and partnerships with businesses and other stakeholders from the private, public and voluntary domain.  The aim is to improve city governance by making the city more livable and exciting for citizens. Not merely for citizens’ own sake but also in order to involve more and more of them in making the city more competitive and innovative.  . Thus, local city governments are out-sourcing vital functions that were previously partaken by them. This new area presents ample business, social and political opportunities for citizens, entrepreneurs and businesses to play a central role in forthcoming the needs of urban citizens, while capitalizing on the data and initiatives facilitated by local government.

There are numerous challenges that government, citizens and businesses need to tackle in new and innovative ways in order for the advantages of open data to be probably deployed. For instance, when data is made available to citizens and businesses, who has the responsibility of the correctness of this data once the data is used for an app? What are the ethical rules that guide the usage of the data made available by local government? What are the norms that govern the interaction between the citizens and businesses using the data, and the local government facilitating the data? Who should the citizens complaint to, if the data made available through apps is incorrect? Who is liable, when the system fails due to faulty data?

Finally, it is important to note that open government data is not the Holy Grail. Data does not necessarily mean information. Information does not equal knowledge, and knowledge does not necessarily lead to meaningful actions. So there is a huge task ahead of weeding out the vast amounts of data available and making sure that the data provides the foundation of sound and solid actions.

By studying the cases of Open Government Data (OGD) in Vienna and Copenhagen, we ask students to work on either a case of business innovation, entrepreneurship, business ethics, city governance, citizens’ involvement, complexity, flows and/or many other aspects that students identify as crucial in working with OGD. Students are asked to choose one focus for their case work, identify the challenges and present the potential solutions.

The challenges and potential solutions are complex. Thus, it is encouraged that you work in interdisciplinary groups consisting of CBS and UCPH students. CBS students will come from a broad range of studies, while the UCPH students study political sciences. It is the interaction between students and disciplines that will facilitate group work and ensure that the chosen theme is seen from different perspectives.

CIEL Course:

This course is offered as a CIEL course, meaning it is offered simultaneously by University of Copenhagen, Technical University of Denmark and Copenhagen Business School. Students from all three universities are taught together by professors from minimum two of the three universities, and course contents are innovative, practice-oriented and trans-disciplinary. Student performance will be assessed according to learning objective specific to their home institutions.

Application deadlines are specific to the three institutions; at CBS, application is possible until the third round of electives applications. In case the on-line course registration at CBS is closed before the third round, students are asked to register by mail to ln.mp@cbs.dk . If a course is cancelled, students will be offered seats at other CIEL courses.

Learn more at www.greeninnovationincities.com.

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• Conradie, Peter, Sunil Choenni, ‘On the barriers for local government releasing open data’, Government Information Quarterly, 31 (2014), pp. S10–S17
• Harrison, Teresa M. and Djoko Sigit Sayogo, ‘Transparency, participation, and accountability practices in open government: A comparative study’, Government Information Quarterly 31 (2014) 513–525
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• Bang, H.P.  and A. Esmark  ‘Good governance in control society- Reconfiguring the political  from politics to policy’  (Administrative Theory and Praxis. 31:1, 7-37. 2009)
• Bang, H.P. The politics of threats: late-modern politics in the shadow of neoliberalism.’       (Critical Policy Studies, 5:4: 434-449 2011a)
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