Enhancing service delivery through technological innovation is a key focus for the International Social Security Association’s (ISSA) European member organizations. The two-day technical seminar featured strategic and practical discussions on the latest developments, showcasing best practices and innovations in data-driven customer-centric, automatized and proactive service delivery and service delivery models based on life events. Participants explored future trends and drew inspiration from social security service delivery strategies of various European social security institutions.

The seminar was attended by over 150 participants from 30 different countries, including the Turkish Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Security, Ahmet Aydin. Nearly 30 speakers, panellists and moderators contributed, including a scene-setting keynote by Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen from the Operating Unit on Policy-Driven Electronic Governance (UNU-EGOV) at the United Nations University.

User-centric design and the critical role of data

Focussing on user-centric service design, Mr Meyherhoff emphasized the importance of the entire user journey, including language use, form, function, look-and-feel, and web accessibility. Intuitive and user-centric service design facilitates online service use and digital inclusion for all. Good service design is not a one-off design-process with user-testing but includes continues improvement of the full user-journey.

The ISSA stressed the importance of data-empowered service delivery, focusing on trends and institutional implications. Data is a critical asset for social security organizations, supporting essential processes and enabling improved service delivery and collaboration with other organizations. Rapidly evolving artificial intelligence systems and tools also depend on large amounts of reliable data. The seminar discussed challenges linked to the institutional capacities required for intensive data use and pointed to methodologies for implementing innovative service delivery systems and data management and protection.

From the European to the global perspective

The seminar provided a platform for diverse viewpoints to converge and explore the opportunities and challenges in the realm of technological innovations in social security service delivery in Europe. It rounded off with a strategic roundtable discussion on emerging challenges and trends in the use of technology for service delivery with the leaders of SGK, Türkiye, the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) of Poland and e-EFKA, Greece. Further discussions from a global perspective will be held during the International Conference on Management and Innovation in Social Security (Management 2025), to be held in Cairo, Egypt, 11–13 February 2025.