About Me

Ismael Peña-López

I am Ismael Peña-López.

I am Director of the School of Public Administration of Catalonia.

I was Director General of Citizen Participation and Electoral Processes at the Government of Catalonia (2018-2021) and professor at the School of Law and Political Science of the Open University of Catalonia (2005-2018).
I have also been senior researcher at Open Evidence and fellow director of Open Innovation at Fundació Jaume Bofill.

My main areas of work are the impact of ICTs in society (e-Readiness, the digital divide), especially in development (e-inclusion, ICT4D), and educational (e-Learning, digital competence) and political (e-participation, e-democracy) institutions.

ICT4D Blog

22/08/2023

Managing complexity for systemic impact: responses to VUCA and BANI environments

In recent decades, the acronyms VUCA and, more recently, BANI have become popular to describe the environments in which we live and work. But, beyond describing the situation or environment as VUCA or BANI, can we do anything about it? How can we change our way of managing projects or promoting impactful public policies? We have compiled below a set of emerging methodologies that allow us to move from theory to practice, from fear to action.

Table of contents

New environments: VUCA & BANI

VUCA

VUCA appears with the end of the Cold War, with globalization, with the digital revolution, with the financialization of the Economy. Adapting theories on leadership from Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus, it proposes that we increasingly operate in environments:

  • Volatile: the dynamics of change are accelerated and the stages of the situations are short-lived;
  • Uncertain: it is increasingly difficult to predict the future (and science ...

    [read more]

Sociedad Red Blog

29/03/2024

Misiones de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación: porqué son importantes

En un mundo cada vez más complejo, incierto... se hace muy difícil

  1. Diagnosticar correctamente los retos a abordar.
  2. Realizar propuestas de abordaje y resolución de los mismos.

En este contexto parece razonable replantearse las políticas de ciencia, tecnología e innovación (STI), cuyos diseños han sido tradicionalmente muy lineales, sectoriales, cerrados.

Simplificando mucho, en dichas políticas:

  • Se identifican relaciones causa-efecto.
  • Se impulsa un sector a innovar.
  • Se deja hacer a los expertos.

Y se espera que llegue una solución que posteriormente se pueda aplicar y replicar.

En nuevos entornos, decíamos antes, más complejos —donde es difícil identificar causas y efectos— o volátiles —donde las probabilidades y escenarios cambian constantemente— ...

[read more]

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