This document proposes strengthening parliamentary capacities through enhanced Parliamentary Research Services (PaRS) and increased political and scientific cooperation between parliaments. It recommends that PaRS take on expanded roles in areas like technology adoption, research, and consultation. Case studies demonstrate how PaRS can support digitalization, modeling of procedures, and EU-funded projects examining lawmaking and policy debates. International cooperation is presented as a means for parliaments to develop independent expertise and counter governmental influence.

1. Advancing capacities of
representative institutions: a
proposal
Dr.-Ing. Dipl.Wirt.-Ing. Fotios Fitsilis
Head of Department
Scientific Documentation and Supervision
Scientific Service
Hellenic Parliament
1
31 August 2017

2. Contents
2
 Introduction
 Parliamentary Research Services (PaRS)
 Political and scientific parliamentary
cooperation
 Case studies of parliamentary research
 Conclusions

3. 3
Prelude
(1)
Emerging
technologies
Gartner Hype
Cycle, 2017

4. Introduction 1
Paradigm shift in technology
Current discourse of a 3rd industrial
revolution
Advances in algorithms (e.g. Blockchain
Technology, Artificial Intelligence/AI) and
integrated systems (e.g. robots, drones)
Unique properties (unlike any previous
technological discoveries)
machine-learning
increasing man-machine interaction
decreasing human dependency
4

5. Introduction II
Major advantages
quicker and more effective than humans
General concerns
digital unemployment
breach of privacy
ethical implications (e.g. killer robots,
drones)
destructive and dangerous choices (e.g. b
AI/autonomous systems)
5

6. How can parliaments worldwide prepare
themselves to address such major societal and
economic challenges?
6
…and the question is ???

7. Strengthening of parliamentary capacities
through:
 Adequate Parliamentary Research Services
 Developments of international political and
scientific networks
7
Proposal

8. 8
Parliaments and innovation
 Technology affects political behavior in
societies
 Role of tradition in parliamentary operation
… tradition vs. innovation*
 Parliaments have long kept technology
debates out of their agenda
The role of PaRS?
* Technological and non-
technological innovation

9. 9
Characteristics of PaRS
 Research services in majority of
parliaments
 Accumulation of procedural and technical
expertise
 Necessity for parliamentary evolution
 Innovation to strengthen…
a) administrative capacity
b) the role of Parliament in digital societies
Redefine the role of PaRS?

10. IPU
guidelines 5 key phases
(own
categorization)
 13 distinct steps
 Reverse
engineering
possible to
assess existing
PaRS!
10
Phase/Guideline
Phase a: Governance
1. Determine where PaRS will be located in the organization
Phase b: Define the mandate
2. Establishment and objectives
3. Identify who may access the service
4. Determine what types of services will be offered
Phase c: Determine how the research service operates
5. Adopt a Service Charter and criteria for prioritizing demands
6. Identify staff requirements
7. Establish a process for quality control
8. Secure access to a range of information sources
9. Define information management requirements
10. Establish means of promotion and evaluation
Phase d: Make the most of partnerships
11. Build partnerships within the parliamentary administration
12. Set up partnerships with other research services
Phase e: Reporting to Parliament
13. Establish ways to report to parliament

11. 11
Role of PaRS I
 Project management role in the introduction
new technologies
 Aggressive approach as in-house
consultancy
 Coordination of parliamentary experts and
external consultants
 Participation in research and/or technical
assistance consortia to acquire necessary
knowhow

12. 12
Role of PaRS II
 Technology may be evolving fast, but some
facettes may not be ripe enough to enter the
parliamentary environment
 Issues of privacy, confidentiality and ethics …
 PaRS have to claim the role for themselves
to guide the adoption of technologies in a
controlled manner
 Strengthened ties with parliamentary libraries
Reforms to strengthen the
functions of PaRS

13. Legal reporting
Documentation
In-house
consultancy
Technical
assistance
Main
services
13
Case study: the HeP PaRS
e.g. bilateral,
Twinning,
Europaid
e.g. digitization,
OCR, archiving

14. Scientific networking I
 5 FP7 Programmes
 Partners from 11 countries
 EU Twinning (GR + RS)
Efficient partnermix
 Broad
distributionung 14

15. Scientific networking II
 36 different partner (47 in total)
 6 different sectors
 5 x HeP und 3 x AUP
Universities
36%
Research
institutes
15%
Companies
26%
Parliaments
18%
Media
3%
NGOs
2%
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
GR DE UK AU NL ES BE IE IL LT FR
15

16. 16
Role of parliamentary cooperation
 Governments are often reluctant to support
parliamentary independence
 Development of intra-parliamentary expertise
 The role of “soft” diplomacy
 Cooperation needs to extend further than
mere international relations
 Potentially counterbalances governmental
superiority!
A means to the strengthening
of representative institutions

17. Case studies
17
 Parliamentary experience: FP7, Horizon
2020, COST and Erasmus+
 Digitalization and archiving
 Modeling of parliamentary procedures
 Study of impact of digital leap on political
behavior
 LEX-IS, +Spaces and NOMAD projects

18. Digitalization and archiving
18
 HeP: image form*
 House of Commons (via Hansard):
Application Programming Interface (API)**
 Italian Chamber of Deputies: SPARQL RDF
query interface
 German Bundestag: PDF docs
* See:
http://www.hellenicparliament.gr/Koinovouleftikos-
Elenchos/Mesa-Koinovouleutikou-
Elegxou#Anazitisi_meson_koinovouleftikou_elegxou
** See: http://theyworkforyou.com

19. Applied technologies
 Pilot application in the 16th Parliamentary
period: 4507 questions
 Programming languages: R/python
 OCR: ABBYY FineReader ® 14
Professional
 TXT handling: Notepad++™
 XML editor: <oXygen/>®XML Editor
 MS Excel (limitations, e.g. 32,767
chars/cell)
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20. FP7 Programme: LEX-
IS
 Web platform for public debate on draft laws
 Cooperation between policy-makers and citizens on
decision-making within a Parliamentary
environment
 Exchange of arguments, decision-making process
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21. FP7 Programme:
+Spaces Policy simulation in virtual
spaces (2D & 3D)
 Debate of draft laws and
measurement of
responsiveness
 Development of data
crawling, mining and
evaluation technologies
21

22. FP7 Programme:
NOMAD
 Web 2.0 for decision-making
 Automated solutions for content
search, categorization and
visualization
22

23. Conclusions
23
 International tensions and emerging
technologies pose great challenges to
national parliaments
 Parliaments need to advance their capacities
to tackle contemporary and future
challenges
 The proposal presented here calls for:
 Strengthening PaRS
 Intensifying parliamentary cooperation
(political and scientific)
 Use the capacities and expertise of

24. Thank you!
fitsilisf@parliament.gr
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25. Sources
F. Fitsilis et al. “Content reconstruction of parliamentary questions”,
SCIECONF (2017)
Fitsilis et al. “Implementing Digital Parliament Innovative Concepts for
Citizens and Policy Makers”, Human Computer Interaction International
Conference (2017)
F. Fitsilis, A. Koutsogiannis, “Strengthening the Capacity of Parliaments
through Development of Parliamentary Research Services”, Wroxton
Workshop (2017)
F. Fitsilis, D. Koryzis, “Parliamentary control of Governmental actions on the
interaction with European organs in the Hellenic Parliament and the National
Assembly of Serbia”, Online Papers on Parliamentary Democracy, PADEMIA
(2016)
LEXIS, https://www.uni-koblenz-landau.de/en/campus-
koblenz/fb4/iwvi/agvinf/projects/completedprojects/lex-is
+Spaces,
https://www.research.ibm.com/haifa/projects/imt/social/spaces.shtml
NOMAD, http://www.nomad-project.eu/
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