The traditional division of “market” and “state” no longer fits a reality where public decision and action is effectively carried out by a plurality of actors.

Traditionally, the policy cycle is designed as a set of activities belonging to government, from the agenda setting to the delivery and evaluation. However in recent years it has been increasingly recognized that public governance involves a wide range of stakeholders, who are increasingly involved not only in agenda-setting but in designing the policies, adopting them (through the increasing role of self-regulation), implementing them (through collaboration, voluntary action, corporate social responsibility), and evaluating them (such as in the case of civil society as watchdog of government).

As Elinor Ostrom stated in her lecture delivered when receiving the Nobel Prize in Economics4:

"A core goal of public policy should be to facilitate the development of institutions that bring out the best in humans. We need to ask how diverse polycentric institutions help or hinder the innovativeness, learning, adapting, trustworthiness, levels of cooperation of participants, and the achievement of more effective, equitable, and sustainable outcomes at multiple scales”.

This acknowledgement leads to important implications for the CROSSOVER roadmap: policy-making 2.0 tools are not just tools for government, but for all stakeholders to participate in the policy-making process5.