The Open Governance Research Exchange (OGRX) is a platform that seeks to identify, collect and share curated insights on new ways of solving public problems. It was created last year by founding partners the GovLab, World Bank Digital Engagement Evaluation Team and mySociety. Today, while more than 3000 representatives from more than 70 countries are gathering in Paris for the Open Government Partnership Summit, we are launching OGRX 2.0 with new features and functionalities to further help users identify the signal in the noise of research and evidence on more innovative means of governing.

What are the goals behind OGRX?

The field of research on topics falling under the banner of open governance is rapidly growing and evolving. Identifying the most important findings remains challenging, however, and important work often resides behind paywalls. OGRX seeks to improve the visibility and accessibility of open governance research – across domains like open data, crowdsourcing and civic tech – through curation, a submission form for users to share important publications and a detailed taxonomy to help users browse and find the research that fits their needs.

What is new?

First, the new OGRX Blog provides an outlet for more easily digestible and shareable insights from the open governance research community. OGRX currently features over 600 publications on governance innovation – but how to digest and identify insights? This space will provide summaries of important works, analyses of key trends in the field of research, and guest posts from researchers working at the leading edge of governance innovation across regions and domains. Check back often to stay on top of what’s new in open governance research.

Second, the new OGRX Selected Readings series offers curated reading lists from well-known experts in open governance. These Selected Readings will give readers a sense of how to jumpstart their knowledge by focusing on those publications that have been curated by those in the known about the topics at hand. Today we are launching this new series with the Selected Readings on Civic Technology, curated by mySociety’s head of research Rebecca Rumbul; and the Selected Readings on Policy Informatics, curated by Erik Johnston of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance and director of the Arizona State University Center for Policy Informatics. New Selected Readings will be posted each month, so check back often!

Help us develop this joint resource on Open Governance

These new developments are only the beginning of our efforts to increase the utility of OGRX and work toward more evidence based open governance. Future efforts could include a forum for researchers to share insights and best practices and a project inventory to help researchers identify partners and avoid duplicative efforts. Watch this space and #OGRX to stay abreast of new developments.

And if you are interested in becoming an OGRX partner, developing a Selected Readings list or penning a guest post for the OGRX blog, please contact Andrew Young, OGRX editor-in-chief at [email protected]. We’d also love to hear your feedback on the platform and any ideas you might have about how to ensure that it is as useful to the community of open governance researchers, policymakers and practitioners as possible.