The association eCH has launched a new expert group to standardize key data processes in the political operations of Switzerland. The "Political Affairs" expert group is developing uniform technical and semantic standards that will enable parliaments and administrations to digitally publish political affairs more efficiently and transparently. Glue Software Engineering is contributing as an active partner – with Christian Gutknecht as co-lead of the group.
Democratic processes need structured data
As early as 2020, the Federal Civic Tech Report emphasized that political data such as motions, postulates, legislative drafts, official consultations, or hearings should be better structured and machine-readable. This should not only serve transparency and traceability but also simplify administration and software development.
This is the mission now being implemented by the expert group under the co-leadership of the Federal Chancellery – in collaboration with stakeholders from public administrations, civil society, academia, and tech companies. The eCH association provides the platform for this work. Its standards are often considered binding for the federal administration and are publicly accessible.
Glue brings years of experience in eGovTech and political data processing
Glue Software Engineering has been developing innovative solutions for monitoring, analyzing, and visualizing political processes with the POLITmonitor platform for many years. The platform aggregates political affairs from over 40 cities, as well as from federal and cantonal authorities. In 2024, Glue also launched the Open Parl Data project together with opendata.ch, bringing together federally structured parliamentary data in an open data ecosystem.
The experience from these projects flows directly into the work of the expert group. The targeted eCH standards are intended to become the foundation for tools such as POLITmonitor and Open Parl Data and significantly improve interoperability between cantons, the federal government, and third-party applications.
Profile: Christian Gutknecht
Christian Gutknecht is a Data Engineer at Glue Software Engineering AG, where he has specialized in the processing and analysis of parliamentary data since 2021. He is a co-initiator of Open Parl Data and contributes to the further development of POLITmonitor.
In addition to his professional activities, he volunteers on the board of the association opendata.ch and is generally committed to open data and information freedom. Previously, he worked at the Universities of Zurich and Bern, at the Swiss National Science Foundation, and at the publisher MDPI – always with a focus on open access and free scholarly communication. He regularly shares his experiences with the Freedom of Information Act and open science on his blog wisspub.net.
Get involved – creating standards for a digital democracy together
The "Political Affairs" expert group develops open standards that bring public administration, politics, and society closer together. There are currently six thematic working groups: political affairs, public parliamentary sessions, political actors (persons, groups, and bodies), legislative texts, meta-processes, and consultations. Interested individuals can contribute according to their interests – whether in concept development, modeling, or practical implementation.
We welcome professionals from administration, civil society, research, and technology – all those committed to transparent, interoperable, and democracy-strengthening data structures.
📧 Contact: info@ech.ch
🔗 More about the expert group
Further links:
Open Parl Data (opendata.ch)
POLITmonitor.ch
Civic Tech Report 2020 (admin.ch)
Netzwoche
Recapp
4teamwork
GitHub: eCH Group
LinkedIn: eCH