The Philanthropy Partnerships Summit demonstrated both the urgency and the opportunity of deeper collaboration between sectors that share a common goal of advancing discovery and ensuring that its benefits reach people and communities everywhere.
We’re launching a national series of digital service retrospectives to capture hard-won lessons, surface what worked, be clear-eyed about what didn’t, and bring digital service experts together to imagine next-generation models for digital government.
In a year when management issues like human capital, IT modernization, and improper payments have received greater attention from the public, examining this PMA tells us a lot about where the Administration’s policy is going to be focused through its last three years.
Congress must enact a Digital Public Infrastructure Act, a recognition that the government’s most fundamental responsibility in the digital era is to provide a solid, trustworthy foundation upon which people, businesses, and communities can build.
To increase the real and perceived benefit of research funding, funding agencies should develop challenge goals for their extramural research programs focused on the impact portion of their mission.
Americans trade stocks instantly, but spend 13 hours on tax forms. They send cash by text, but wait weeks for IRS responses. The nation’s revenue collector ranks dead last in citizen satisfaction. The problem isn’t just paperwork — it’s how the government builds.
While it seems that the current political climate may not incentivize the use of evidence-based data sources for decision making, those of us who are passionate about ensuring results for the American people will continue to firmly stand on the belief that learning agendas are a crucial component to successfully navigate a changing future.
In recent months, we’ve seen much of these decades’ worth of progress erased. Contracts for evaluations of government programs were canceled, FFRDCs have been forced to lay off staff, and federal advisory committees have been disbanded.
At a recent workshop, we explored the nature of trust in specific government functions, the risk and implications of breaking trust in those systems, and how we’d known we were getting close to specific trust breaking points.
What if low trust was not a given? Or, said another way: what if we had the power to improve trust in government – what would that world look like?
Datasets and variables that do not align with Administration priorities, or might reflect poorly on Administration policy impacts, seem to be especially in the cross-hairs.
At a period where the federal government is undergoing significant changes in how it hires, buys, collects and organizes data, and delivers, deeper exploration of trust in these facets as worthwhile.