Nordic DigiGov Lab

Finding, understanding, and using public services can be a challenge if one lacks knowledge about the authorities and processes involved. This becomes especially difficult when, as a citizen, you need to navigate between authorities in different countries.

The Nordic DigiGov Lab Solution

To address these issues, the Nordic DigiGov Lab has been created—a unique collaboration project between the Nordic and Baltic countries. The project is being carried out by the digitalization authorities in Sweden, Norway, and Finland, in collaboration with the other Nordic and Baltic countries.

People at the center

The project, which puts citizens at the center where no one should be left behind, aims to enable citizens to navigate seamlessly through major life events. The project will explore how AI can be used and how information exchange between countries can be automated.

Innovative Solutions for citizens

The project is experimenting with innovative solutions to help citizens in various life events. The focus will be on the life event "death and inheritance," but the experiences gained will later be applicable to other types of life events.

One of the tasks will be to create prototypes and find innovative solutions that ensure citizens encounter a seamless digital service, regardless of how many actors are involved.

Enhanced ability to work with people at the center

The project also includes developing recommendations for digitalization authorities on how the work to center around the individual can be further developed, both through soft governance in the form of guidelines and recommendations, and through hard governance in the form of regulations and requirements.

This will be based on a mapping of experiences and work carried out in the Nordic-Baltic countries to identify common guiding principles.

Reflection Paper: What Does It Mean to Put the Human at the Center?

A reflection paper has been developed that provides an overview of what a human-centered approach means in practice for the public sector. It explores how the concept is interpreted and used to define requirements for, among other things, AI systems and digital services.

Based on interviews with civil servants in the Nordic and Baltic countries, as well as literature studies, we present examples of how human-centricity can be understood as a collaborative principle within three key areas: governance, service development, and innovation.

The reflection concludes with discussion questions and identified challenges that may serve as a foundation for further development of recommendations and governance models within the Nordic-Baltic cooperation.

A small step for digitali­sation, a giant leap for humanity? (pub.norden.org) External link.