Given the escalating demands and complexities in public services, the public sector faces significant challenges in meeting citizens' evolving needs while managing limited resources. To address these challenges, there is a growing recognition of the importance of involving citizens in the co-creation of public services and policy-making processes.
Digitalization offers a pathway to enable such co-creation, and the use of AI technologies has the potential to transform public services by enhancing their efficiency, quality, inclusivity, and ethical considerations. However, simply providing digital tools is not sufficient to ensure effective co-creation. It requires a deeper analysis and understanding of citizens' needs, as well as the development of cross-cutting competencies among public sector professionals.
Current Master's programs often lack the interdisciplinary approach needed to equip graduates with the skills to develop effective, sustainable co-creation in the digital age. In response to these challenges, the project aims to design an innovative, transnational, and interdisciplinary Master's program that equips students with the knowledge and skills necessary to facilitate the evidence-based co-creation of public services utilizing AI technologies.
The AICOSERV consortium included an integrated team of six partners with extensive interdisciplinary experience: the Gdansk University of Technology (GUT, Poland), as project coordinator, the University for Continuing Education Krems (UWK, Austria), the United Nations University Operating Unit on Policy-Driven Electronic Governance (UNU-EGOV, Portugal), the Umeå University (UMU), the Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences (BUAS, Germany and the European HEI - Alfred Nobel University Dnipro (UAN, Ukraine).
The project directly contributes to the UNU-EGOV's research objective of understanding e-governance challenges for inclusive, resilient, and sustainable societies. It focuses on exploring the long-debated goals of co-creation, responding to stakeholder feedback by employing AI technologies, and its impact on higher education entities with graduate students in general.
Objectives
- Prove a new offer in the educational market that focuses on the unique composition of underrepresented thematic areas, particularly, co-creation, and evidence-based policy-making, with a focus on the AI role to develop sustainable public services.
- Fill the gap in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) with the innovative character of the study program that integrates cutting-edge technological advancements with comprehensive interdisciplinary learning, ensuring relevance, applicability, and sustainability in today's rapidly evolving landscape of public service delivery.
- Enhance the capacities of universities to modernize and internationalize their curricula and teaching practices by fostering active collaboration and knowledge exchange among all partners in the project consortium, including universities and associated partners with remarkable accomplishments in the fields of expertise represented in the project.
- Meet the required standards to attract talented students from around the world.
- Ensure the rigorous policies and procedures for the development of joint mechanisms related to quality assurance, accreditation, and recognition of degrees and credits for the study program.
- Guarantee to lead to a joint degree.
Activities
A1. Analyse and explore the subject area context and needs
A2. Design a Curriculum and joint mechanisms
A3. Perform an evaluation of the process and dissemination
Outputs
D1. Report on joint teaching and operational mechanisms
D2. Workshop on engaging citizens in the AI lifecycle
D3. Validation seminar with academics, study program coordinators, educational directors, and teachers to validate joint mechanisms
