Collaboratory 2015

On October 1-2, 2015 the Public-Private Platform hosted its annual Collaboratory event. As in recent years, a good number of participants had signed up to listen to and get into dialogue with the prominent speakers from Denmark and abroad. The conference brought together
participants from public institutions, the corporate sector and academia.

This year the theme of the Collaboratory was Infrastructures. Infrastructures are a key theme for public-private collaborations and one of the main matters of concern in debates about the digital societal agenda, urban governance (e.g. smart cities), the creation of new markets (for green energy, for instance), economic growth (ICT infrastructures) and other aspects of public-private partnerships.

Oct 1:Data and Digital Infrastructures
The first day focused on ‘Big Data’ and related developments made possible by digital technologies. These topics figure prominently in discussions about the future of business, governance and societal transformation highlighting the importance of exploring the roll-out of infrastructural projects, regulatory reforms and business development in this area. The workshop focused on data and digital infrastructures that may facilitate data-driven economic development, innovative business models, solid stakeholder relations and sustainable data-sharing practices. Besides speakers: Jens Krieger Røyen, the Danish Agency for Digitization, Pernille Tranberg, the Danish Business Authority and Søren Kvist, Copenhagen Connecting/Copenhagen Solutions Lab the first day involved a keynote from Brit Ross Winthereik, who in her talk provided insights into her work from within Science and Technology Studies on thinking infrastructurally.

Oct 2: Financial Infrastructures
The second day focused on Financial Infrastructures by addressing such themes as technological developments within the financial sector and practices like algorithmic trading (especially high-frequency trading), the automatization of trading venues changing the way financial markets operate, and the consequences of their regulatory practices. As with the day before, this part of the Collaboratory also presented leading academic, regulatory bodies and industry experts. Michael Power, Professor of Accounting at the London School of Economics, was keynote speaker and gave a wide -ranging talk about Governing Infrastructures. His research interests include the causes and consequences of auditability, transparency and accountability, financial regulation and reporting as well as operational risk management and errors and risk reporting. Mike Power has been the Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Risk and Regulation (CARR) at LSE. In his talk Power addressed points about the opportunities and risks of the digital challenges and came across relevant questions about infrastructure resilience. The conference day presented further interesting speakers: Hanne Råe Larsen, Danish FSA, Lasse Heje Pedersen, CBS/AQR and Yazid Sharaiha, Norges Bank Investment Management. The Collaboratory combines the terms 'collaboration' and 'laboratory' and is an event with the purpose of creating dialogue about relevant agendas linked to new forms of ‘mobilisation of society’. Read more about the Collaboratory conference concept at the website here.