Innovating across sectors: Examining novel work modes and organizational models in digitally-enabled or -driven cross-sectoral partnering.

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This Future Leaders Fellowship (FLF) investigates cross-sectoral partnerships (XSPs) where the third sector - encompassing civic society, nonprofits, charities, voluntary and community organizations, nongovernmental organizations, public databanks, and open source communities - plays a pivotal role. We have a particular focus on those XSPs facilitated or driven by emerging digital technologies like artificial intelligence tools and platforms. We will deliver a multi-country, multi-disciplinary program of research that consists of multiple case studies in the UK, USA and Canada. Together these will offer evidence and insights for researchers, and policy and industry leaders to better understand, manage and govern digitally-enabled or -driven XSPs dedicated to public good (such as public health and healthcare).
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Empirical evidence on managing and governing digitally-enabled or -driven XSPs dedicated to public good is largely missing because this an emerging research area; these XSPs were not supported until recently because the new technologies themselves, e.g. artificial intelligence, only recently emerged outside computer science labs. Therefore, we have limited evidence of how the deployment of these new digital technologies in real-world XSPs affects what we already know about XSPs, about their effectiveness in the domain in which they are deployed (e.g. healthcare), and about the role of the third sector and civic society. We know even less about how to ensure the robustness, sustainability, fairness and benefits of digitally-enabled or -driven XSPs.
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During the FLF renewal period, I will address these theoretical and real-world questions by identifying and empirically examining a series of cases of digitally-enabled or -driven XSPs in the UK, USA and Canada, within health, health services and care settings. I will thus create large, cross-country datasets that enable researchers and policymakers to benchmark 'success' in digitally-enabled/driven XSPs....