Developing an artificial intelligence readiness framework for citizen-centred public governance

People expect the public administration to provide high-quality public services accessible to all segments of the population, meeting citizens’ needs and expectations. Despite increasing interest in AI technologies (machine learning, natural language processing, artificial neural networks, chatbots, etc.), public administration has to some extent maintained a level of detachment from technological progress. This points to the urgent need for public administration to consider the potential held by AI technologies as well as the future needs of a citizen-centred, proactive society. Namely, artificial intelligence is often viewed as a connecting link between digital/smart public governance models and hybrid public governance models, promoting the collaboration of different stakeholders, efficiency and transparency of PA, addressing societal needs, and creating public value. Accordingly, the project is motivated by the obvious research gap regarding a comprehensive framework for measuring public administration readiness for artificial intelligence. The project's mission is to improve the public administration’s functioning and strengthen hybrid public governance by providing a framework for PA to be able to measure their AI readiness and act accordingly to exploit the potential held by AI. A comprehensive methodological framework driven by a mixed-methods design will thus be developed, serving as holistic guidance for public administration to assess their readiness for artificial intelligence technologies adoption by public administration. Specifically, the innovative and comprehensive framework will be based on an original methodology from the existing AI/smart/digital readiness assessment frameworks and will build on the theories of technology adoption – upgraded to AI-specific and extended Leavitt’s diamond model, while observant of the contemporary overlapping of public governance principles. The proposed framework is to be tailored to the specific features of the Slovenian public administration, involving public governance, stakeholder and environment dimensions, and developed in line with an extensive set of the main public governance practices (neo-Weberian governance, post-NPM, good governance and hybrid public governance) and their corresponding principles. Due to the complexity of the problem domain, interdisciplinary approaches are foreseen. A series of remarkable research results is therefore expected, contributing to the scientific and practical development of the field of public administration.  The research project will develop a comprehensive interdisciplinary methodological framework that will permit the measurement of readiness in public administration to be assessed with respect to various sub-dimensions. The methodological framework is to be based on quantitative (e.g., closed-ended surveys, microdata etc.) and qualitative (e.g., semi-structured interviews, focus groups) data analysed using several methods (bibliometric analysis, data mining, content analysis, expert reviews, dynamic methods etc.). Intensive use of the proposed comprehensive framework will enable public administration to make better informed and more reliable data-driven decisions and, even more importantly, to make public administration of greater value to the public. The complex nature of AI technologies will be addressed by the interdisciplinary approach, facilitating the hitherto still not achieved systemic way of measuring AI readiness for citizen-centred public governance. This will lay important foundations for public administration’s further modernisation and for its stakeholders to suitably adapt to the challenges of the ongoing digital transformation.