Public Administration Open Community (PAOC)

PAOC’s (Public Administration Open Community) purpose to support an ongoing sustainable process of modernisation of the Italian Public Administration is accomplished through the definition of a multi-level governance model that enables the mutual acknowledgement and sharing of public and private capabilities and resources.

During the past few years, Central Administrations developed material and intangible infrastructures to be adopted by Agencies and several Local Administrations originated remarkable practices of innovation to satisfy their needs, while fostering skills in project management and institutional networking. Besides that, thank to EU Programmes a great amount of resources was invested in developing managerial and technological solutions that contributed to the growth and quality of innovation.

However, the great disjunction amongst innovation initiatives (scattered throughout territories and heterogeneous in dimensions) highlighted the lack of a structured and systemic coordination amongst actors that could unfold and release greater innovative potential.

Given this context, support in identifying, disclosing and nonetheless disseminating good practices stemming from and leveraging the collaboration within established networks of agencies and institutions as well as enterprises and professionals is not only an urgency but also a great opportunity of progress, especially within the framework of EU Programmes.

Hence, the community model designed and trialled within the research project calls for institutions, suppliers and agencies to exchange views and expertise on good practices in the following modes:

• a solution line is identified for any technological or managerial good practice, that is a guideline to manage the transferring and development of the solution;
• solution lines may belong to one or more thematic areas, that is themes encompassing private and public interest favouring actors exchange and coordination to originate shared initiatives;
• management activities performed within the community may be related to specific territories defined by homogeneous needs;
• services supply to institutions can be centralised through a Shared Service Center outsourcing to actors providing standardised infrastructures and services.

Through these tools, PAOC helps Institutions to identify the most adequate innovation paths and practices.