SONNETS roadmap: pathing the way for transformed Public Sector

SONNETS pursues the aim to develop a roadmap of necessary technological and implementation activities to modernize the public sector with emerging ICTs and addressing thereby related societal challenges.
Methodologically, SONNETS follows a technology roadmapping approach which is based, on the one side, on societal and public sector needs and, on the other side, on the opportunities of emerging ICTs. Thus, SONNETS incorporates the general idea of the European Industrial Research Management Association (EIRMA) [1] approach of including both ‘market-pull’ as well as ‘technology-push’ aspects into the development of the roadmap.
The development of the roadmap itself contains both elements of the EIRMA [1] approach as well as of the T-Plan process [2] and has further been adapted to the needs of SONNETS.
Overall, the SONNETS roadmap development follows a 3-step approach (plus a preparing one, in which the technologies and needs have been identified):
0. Identification of emerging ICTs with the potential to transform and modernize the public sector and also identification of societal, business and public sector needs  this has been done by applying the SONNETS innovation identification framework in WP2 and WP3
1. Analysis of emerging ICTs and trends (identified in WP3): e.g. regarding their technological readiness level, current research activities, actors in this area and possible obstacles which could hinder a successful implementation into the public sector

2. Identification of gaps and research needs: Each societal and public sector need (identified in WP2) has been assigned to one or more emerging ICTs which could help to satisfy the respective need. For each of these technology-need pairs the gap between the technology as it is now and a fully implemented version in the public sector has been described.

3. Development of the roadmap: This development of the roadmap itself has been performed by following another 3-step approach:
I. Matching of emerging ICTs and societal or public sector needs on a 1:1 base (each need is assigned to only one technology). This matching has been validated during an experts’ workshop.
II. Validating the activities which are necessary to implement the emerging ICTs successfully in the public sector with the aim to satisfy the specific assigned societal or public sector need during an experts workshop.
III. Deciding on the content of the roadmaps: The roadmaps have subsequently been filled by using the previous results of SONNETS, as well as further literature reviews (e.g. from other EU research projects, intergovernmental organisations etc.), and the feedback received during the validation activities.

This exercise has shown that the emerging ICTs identified during the course of SONNETS which could potentially play a major role to meet the assigned societal or public sector needs are already on a very advanced technological level. Even more, several applications or services are already in use somewhere within or outside Europe - in the public sector itself or with a comparable function in another domain.
Thus, the roadmaps to implement these technologies in the public sector contain only adaptions, modifications or improvements of these technologies or non-technological activities like, e.g. development of training, process-oriented issues, necessary infrastructure, promotion of applications, development of standards, and dealing with ethical, legal or societal issues.

Thus, the bottleneck of innovating the public sector is not the technological development - it is the implementation itself – including the adaption to the specific necessities of the public sector and the consideration of the complex process-oriented, socio-economic and ethical issues.
The main part of this deliverable contains the summarized roadmaps of the 23 identified emerging ICTs and trends, including the recommended technological and non-technological activities necessary to implement these emerging technologies in the public sector with the aim to satisfy societal and public sector needs. The full roadmaps are presented in the different standalone flyers attached in this publication.