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Albany, NY - The University at Albany's Center for Technology in Government is embarking on its first international project funded in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

The $30,000 grant from NSF's Digital Government Program allows the Center to begin studying how governments, corporations, and nonprofits can work together to provide services to citizens and businesses. Quebec-based Le Centre Francophone d'Informatisation des Organisations, commonly known as CEFRIO, is the Center's partner in this project that will eventually involve researchers from several countries.

Advanced networking and other information technologies have made it possible for different groups to work together to create comprehensive systems for delivering services to citizens. The Center's project, "Multinational Investigation of New Models of Collaboration for Government Services to Citizens and Businesses," aims to document and explain how public-private partnerships are created and maintained in different nations around the world.

"The rapid evolution of various technologies has created important new opportunities for governments to redesign services through partnerships with other organizations elsewhere in government, in business, or in the nonprofit sector," said Center Director Sharon Dawes. "This project seeks to analyze and document how these new partnerships develop and perform."

Governments must invest in new models of public-private partnerships and take advantage of emerging technologies if they want to continue to deliver quality services to citizens. But the complexity of these types of partnerships, which are new to many governments, can be daunting. Dawes said governments must deal with questions about the use of advanced networking and other information technologies, resource sharing, accountability, and accessibility of services. Countries all across the globe, regardless of their form of government or political objectives, share these concerns.

The Center and CEFRIO, a nonprofit research center dedicated to improving the performance of organizations through information and communication technologies, will guide an international network of field researchers as they examine successful public-private partnerships in their countries. The study will examine the variety of factors that lead to successful alliances, and result in practical guidelines that will help government managers create such partnerships to better serve their constituents.

The mission of the Center for Technology in Government at the University at Albany is to foster public sector innovation, enhance capability, generate public value, and support good governance. We carry out this mission through applied research, knowledge sharing, and collaboration at the intersection of policy, management, and technology.