Marking a half-century of shaping the field, Government Information Quarterly (GIQ) celebrates 50 years as the leading journal in digital government research—and I am honored that our latest article, “Reflections on the Nature of Digital Government Research: Marking the 50th Anniversary of Government Information Quarterly,” forms part of this milestone issue constituting an editorial.
This collaborative piece brings together a group of scholars—Marijn Janssen, Hong Zhang, Adegboyega Ojo, Anastasija Nikiforova, Euripidis Loukis, Gabriela Viale Pereira, Hans J. Scholl, Helen Liu, Jaromir Durkiewicz, Laurie Hughes, Lei Zheng, Leonidas Anthopoulos, Panos Panagiotopoulos, Tomasz Janowski, and Yogesh K. Dwivedi—each offering a distinct perspective on how digital government research has evolved, diversified, and responded to societal and technological transformation.
A special thanks goes to Marijn Janssen, former Editor-in-Chief of GIQ, whose vision and coordination made this anniversary reflection possible.
Looking Back: Five Decades of Digital Government Research
Over 50 years, GIQ has chronicled—and often anticipated—the evolution of digital governance: from early computational systems to open government, data-driven innovation, smart cities, and the rise of AI. Throughout these cycles, the journal has remained the field’s intellectual anchor, publishing research that tackles foundational public sector challenges while engaging with emerging technologies such as blockchain, quantum computing, IoT, AR/VR, and the Metaverse.
Several characteristics continue to define GIQ’s identity:
• Methodological and epistemological pluralism GIQ’s hallmark is its openness to diverse paradigms, methods, and theoretical lenses. Rather than promoting a single theory of digital government, it invites multiple angles—qualitative, quantitative, mixed, conceptual, comparative—to analyze complex governance realities.
• “Blue-sky” thinking without hype GIQ encourages forward-looking, innovative, and boundary-pushing ideas, while maintaining analytical discipline. This balance keeps the field visionary yet grounded.
• Impact rooted in both theory and practice The journal has consistently insisted that strong methodology must lead to meaningful insights—advancing academic understanding while speaking directly to policymakers and practitioners.
• Clear communication to a broad audience GIQ’s readership extends well beyond academia. With government, industry, and civil society looking to the journal for guidance, clarity and accessibility are essential. As Shakespeare famously said, “brevity is the soul of wit.”
What Our Anniversary Article Contributes
Our contribution synthesizes insights from leading experts to illuminate the nature, evolution, and future of digital government research. Several overarching themes emerge:
epistemological pluralism and interdisciplinarity as fundamental characteristics of the field;
contextualized, value-driven, and practice-relevant research as the journal’s core strength;
digital transformation as a socio-technical phenomenon, where institutions, technology, data, governance models, and citizen expectations co-evolve;
the importance of studying both technology and context, avoiding the pitfalls of black-boxing either side of the equation;
GIQ’s role as a platform for blue-sky research, innovation, and rigorous theorization that remains relevant across countries and governance systems.
We dedicate this article to the late Professor Soon Ae Chun, former Co-Editor-in-Chief of GIQ. Her leadership, scholarship, and unwavering commitment to quality and community have left an enduring mark on the field.
The 50-year anniversary of GIQ is more than a celebration. It is a reminder that the future of digital government research depends on openness: in methods, theories, communication, and imagination. As digital governance accelerates, the journal’s role as a bridge—between disciplines, between theory and practice, and between local realities and global insights—has never been more essential.
Are you focusing on new topics emerging in the field of ICT and public sector, incl. public-private ecosystems? Then it is time to start preparing your submission for EGOV2025 – IFIP EGOV-CeDEM-EPARTEmerging Issues and Innovations Track, which this time we chair in the updated form, welcoming A. Paula Rodriguez Müller on the board with us – Francesco Mureddu (The Lisbon Council, Belgium)and myself – Anastasija Nikiforova (Tartu University, Estonia)).
EGOV2025 – IFIP EGOV-CeDEM-EPART is one of the most recognized conference in e-Government, ICT and public administration and related topics, which this year will be hosted in Belgium, in the heart of Europe, by University for Continuing Education Krems, Austria. This year, IFIP EGOV 2025 is dedicated to the broader areas of e-Government and e-Democracy, which include facets like Digital Government, e-Participation, Open Government, Smart Government, AI government, GovTech, Algoritmic Governance, and related topics to digitalization and government.
Innovation and application of emerging technologies are now more and more in the thinking of governments at all levels. While it would be easy to consider the public sector as being less flexible or slow in adoption, presentations at recent EGOV conferences proved that one should not come to such a conclusion too easily. Upcoming technologies, innovative organizational solutions, or new avenues of public sector involvement in the public sector are becoming more commonplace along with the potential challenges and issues these bring. Policymakers and public sector officials are now expected to embrace change, consider digital transformation, or improve governance practices. At the same time, public sector researchers are also influenced by new views, methods, tools, and techniques. The goal of this track is to provide a platform for the discussion of new ideas, issues, problems, and solutions entering the public sphere. Ideas that are emerging but might not fit other conference tracks are also welcome. Focus may include, but are not limited to:
Looking ahead into social innovation;
Future studies, the future of government, policy-making and democracy;
The future of digital governance;
Public values in transforming the government;
The role of government in smart cities (incl. smart sustainable cities) and sustainable living;
The role of the public sector in Human-Centered Society (Society 5.0);
New trends in public sector research such as Metaverse, Cityverse, Large Language Models (LLMs), generative AI and its implementations such as chatGPT, Claude, ChatSonic, Poe – benefits, risks, adoption and resistance to its adoption by the public sector and citizens;
Government in the Virtual Worlds and Web 4.0;
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), smart contracts and blockchain;
New technologies for automated decision-making and their policy implications;
Public sector use and regulation of AI, genAI, Industry 4.0, Industry 5.0, and the Internet of Things (IoT);
Digital Humanism (responsible and ethical integration of technology into society, ensuring that human values and dignity are prioritized in the development and use of digital tools and innovations);
The role of the public sector in competitiveness and tech sovereignty;
Global challenges that go beyond nation states (such as migration, climate change etc.) and which require international collaboration of individual governments;
Preparing for the policy challenges of future technologies;
Regulating misinformation;
Digital transformation in public sector contexts;
Self-Service Structures for Inclusion;
Public-private sector collaboration and integration;
GovTech initiatives and innovations;
Latest trends in co-creation and service delivery;
Online public community building;
Upcoming issues of eVoting / internet voting including application of digital signatures in the public sector;
Discussion of new research methods that have not been applied in this context;
Application of role theory in the analysis of public sector functions and processes;
Forward looking insights from case studies – let it be successful or failed experiments.
Utilization of digital billboards;
Public sector use and regulation of Fintech innovations;
Theoretical and practical approaches to experimentation and sandboxing in the public sector.Future studies, the future of government, policy-making and democracy
As the year comes to an end, so does the 45th edition of the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS2024) —a conference filled with presentations, countless chats with old colleagues and friends and meeting new ones, and a tons of emotions coming from a warm Bangkok 🇹🇭
This year the conference held under theme “Digital Platforms for Emerging Societies” aimed at examining the expansive role of information technology in driving economic and societal transformation across the globe. Over 1.7K participants from 49 countries attended ICIS2024 this year, incl. Estonia 🇪🇪 – the only country of the Baltics – represented by both TalTech (Tallinn University of Technology) and finally University of Tartu (with me trying to bring the name of Latvia 🇱🇻 as well), in total accounting only three people – Mari-Klara Stein, myself and my PhD student – Dimitris Symeonidis, which is, however, a significant increase compared to previous editions, which is smth we – Mari-Klara and myself – are still not too happy about, as we still remain “rarities,” as I’ve been called several times, and will try to change that 👩🔬
The conference started for me with pre-ICIS Symposium SIGDSA (Special Interest Group on Decision Support and Analytics), which this year run under the “Emerging AI Platforms for Societal Good” theme, which was an action-packed day featuring a keynote by Apirak Kosayodhin (Former Governor of Bangkok), followed by a panel on the role of AI across society, business & academia, with Ofir T., discussing whether Artificial Intelligence, and GenAI in particular, is a “friend or foe” reflecting on our evolving attitudes toward it (through the lenses of other phenomenon, incl. dogs & how our attitudes towards them changed over centuries), Borworn Papasratorn addressing challenges of diffusing & adopting AI in Thai Higher Education Institutions, Kriengkrai Boonlert-U-Thai discussing the role of information technology in driving economic & societal transformation, moderated by Ramesh Sharda.
And as a follow-up to this, the paper of my former master student Jan-Erik Kalmus – “Generative AI adoption in higher education: exploring educator resistance in Estonian universities” was presented. In this study, Jan-Erik examined educator resistance to student use of GenAI in higher education focusing on Estonia, known as a “digital nation”, employing a theoretical model informed by the Innovation Resistance Theory (IRT) that we introduced in previous study presented at ECAI (on which I posted earlier).
It was continued with 7 hours of vibrant dialogue on digital government research as part of the pre-ICIS workshop on eGovernment, including: ✅the first ever study results of my 1st year PhD student – Dimitris Symeonidis – presented (“Reimagining Digital Government: a step towards Blockchain-Enabled Public Data Ecosystems”) ✅a concept of what we call Data Satellites introduced by Asif Gill as part of our “Towards a Data Satellite Architecture for Digital Government Ecosystems” study, in which we call for a data observability level missing in the current data ecosystems, thereby providing zero opportunities to get rid off or at least be informed about dark and toxic data (while the concept name might evolve based on community feedback, whereas happy that the concept itself found an acceptance with community, what we hoped for) ✅and 5 more super interesting studies by colleagues exploring digital transformation, AI in public administration (incl. framework to determine when AI is truly needed (i.e., smth close to the idea of automation as a default and the only in business process redesign – just don’t!), AI literacy, GenAI for citizen engagement), smart cities, and a methodological proposal for a soft digital ecosystem methodology for hybrid cities’ problem design 🎙️all of this masterfully moderated by Rony Medaglia – president of the current SIG-eGov, and tons of discussions around every study and the filed in general, incl. the future plans.
Finally, my first-year PhD student introduced himself to the IS community at probably the most prestigious IS conference, with yet another paper presented at the SIG SVC – AIS Special Interest Group for Services Workshop on Synergizing Service Ecosystems – “Integrating Generative AI with Public Data Ecosystems: Enhancing Decision Making and Efficiency in the Service Industry of the Private Sector”.
All in all, with four papers presented at three ICIS workshops & symposium, this was a very rich week, for which – a heartfelt thanks to the organizers!
The Association for Information Systems (AIS) organized America’s Conference on Information Systems is coming! This year it will be held in Montreal (Canada), running under the general theme of “Intelligent technologies for a better future” and the revised list of (mini-)tracks, where the special attention I invite you to draw to is a new “Sustainable Digital and Data Ecosystems – Navigating the Age of AI” mini-track (chairs: Anastasija Nikiforova, Daniel Staegemann, George Marakas, Martin Lnenicka).
In an increasingly data-driven world, well-designed and managed digital and data ecosystems are critical to strategic innovation and competitive advantage. With the rise of new data architectures, the shift from centralized to decentralized systems, and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in data management, these ecosystems are becoming more dynamic, interconnected, and complex.
The growing importance of emerging data architectures such as data lakehouses and data meshes coupled with the emerging technologies of AI, blockchain, cloud computing to name a few, requires us to rethink how we manage, govern, and secure data across these ecosystems. Moreover, AI is no longer a mere component but an active agent/actor in these ecosystems, transforming processes such as data governance, data quality management, and security. Simultaneously, there is a pressing need to address how these systems can remain resilient and sustainable in the face of technological disruption and societal challenges, and how interdisciplinary approaches can provide new insights into managing these digital environments.
This mini-track seeks to explore the evolving nature of these ecosystems and their role in fostering sustainable, resilient, and innovative digital environments.
We encourage research from an ecosystem perspective (grounded in systems theory) that takes a holistic view, as well as more focused studies on specific components such as policies, strategies, interfaces, methodologies, or technologies. Special attention will be paid to the ongoing evolution of these ecosystems, especially their capacity to remain trustworthy, sustainable, and resilient over time.
Potential topics include but are not limited to:
data management and governance in emerging data architectures (data lakehouse, data mesh, etc.), including data governance, data quality management, and security;
the role of AI in data management, including AI-augmented governance, data quality management, and security;
AI-driven resilience and sustainability in digital and data ecosystems, incl. AI-augmentation of data lifecycle- and business- processes;
conceptualization and evolution of digital and data ecosystem components and their interrelationships;
emerging technologies, such as blockchain, cloud computing, sensors etc., shaping the strategic development of digital and data ecosystems;
case studies on the transition from centralized (data warehouse, data lake, data lakehouse) to decentralized data architectures (e.g., data mesh);
human/user factors in digital and data ecosystems (acceptance, interactions, participation etc.);
empirical studies on the sustainability, trustworthiness, and resilience of digital ecosystems;
methodologies and strategies for managing evolving digital ecosystems in different sectors (e.g., finance, healthcare, government / public sector, education).
interdisciplinary approaches to building, managing, and sustaining digital and data ecosystems.
The research and innovation in digital and data ecosystems requires an interdisciplinary approach. Therefore, this track invites papers from various disciplines such as information systems, computer science, management science, data science, decision science, organizational design, policy making, complexity, and behavioral economics, and social science to continue the problematization exploration of concepts, theories, models, and tools for building, managing and sustaining ecosystems. These can be conceptual, design science research, empirical studies, industry and government case studies, and theoretical papers, including literature reviews.
As such, this mini-track will serve as a platform for interdisciplinary dialogue on the critical role of sustainable digital and data ecosystems in driving strategic innovation and competitive advantage. We invite researchers and practitioners alike to share their insights, theoretical perspectives, and empirical findings in this rapidly evolving domain.
This mini-track is part of “Strategic & Competitive Uses of Information and Digital Technologies (SCUIDT)” track (chairs: Jack Becker, Russell Torres, Parisa Aasi, Vess Johnson).
For more information, see AMCIS2025 website (for this (min-)track, navigate to “Strategic & Competitive Uses of Information and Digital Technologies (SCUIDT)” track).
Is your research related to any of the above topics? Then do not wait – submit! 📅📅📅Submissions are due February 28, 2025.
26th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (dg.o2025)is coming with continuation of the track we launched the last time – “Sustainable Public and Open Data Ecosystems for inclusive and innovative government” track (chairs: Anastasija Nikiforova (University of Tartu, Estonia), Anthony Simonofski (Université de Namur ASBL, Belgium), Anneke Zuiderwijk (Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands) & Manuel Pedro Rodríguez Bolívar (University of Granada, Spain)).
Briefly about the track… Today, the goal of an actor-centric public data ecosystem that would be sufficiently sustainable, resilient and fair, is defined as an approach capable of representing and keeping in balance the data interests of all actors[1], to bring expected value (both economic, social and environment) became central for public data ecosystems and other types of data infrastructures and data spaces[2] that are based on the concept of openness and data sharing among stakeholders. Public data and open (government) data ecosystems are seen as a political and socio-economic phenomenon that promise to benefit the economy, and increase transparency, efficiency, and quality of public services, including the transformation of government data-driven actions, stimulate public sector innovations in various areas of public life and promote civic engagement[3][4][5]. Having collaborative governance models in place is one of the prerequisites for a resilient and value-adding ecosystem, of which stakeholders are an inevitable element, making it necessary to ensure those ecosystems are stakeholder-oriented. These models are expected to support stakeholders/actors, who, however, may have different characteristics (incl. (open) data literacy and digital literacy), needs / demands and expectations (public sector, private sector, business, citizen) for public value creation and co-creation. Understanding, designing, and maintaining such an ecosystem is further complicated by the fact that both data, service and process quality must be ensured and kept maintained with a limited understanding of how the above are expected to be ensured even alone.
Recent research found that concepts affecting and shaping the ecosystem are: 1) stakeholders / actors and their roles, 2) phases of the data lifecycle, in which a stakeholder participates in the ecosystem, 3) technical and technological infrastructure, 4) generic services and platforms, 5) human capacities and skills of both providers and consumers, 6) smart city domains (thematic categories) as the targeted areas for data reuse, 7) externalities affecting goals, policy, and resources, 8) level of (de)centralization of data sources – development, restrictions, 9) perception of importance and support from public officials, and 10) user interface, user experience, and usability[6]. Moreover, these ecosystems same as its components are (co-)evolving over time[7] due to both internal and external factors. The latter – external factors – include technological developments. As such, the rapid development of emerging technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence (AI) is seen as a new trigger for public and open data development (AI for open data and open data for AI), machine learning (ML), federated learning (FL), internet of things (IoT), metaverse etc. provides new opportunities to improve these ecosystems in a disrupt way to be useful for collaborative governance models. Also, the link between Open Data Ecosystems and sustainable development goals (SDG) seems to be more relevant nowadays in their way to build more democratic cities based on government transparency, citizen participation, and citizen cooperation. Finally, higher expectations, needs and demands of businesses and citizens, derived from the implementation of B2G, C2G models, that influence and shape the design and development of these data environments, as well as expected to be affected, e.g., B2G in relation to which European Commission is taking regulatory action and is preparing the Data Act to set the rules and conditions, thereby changing the current voluntary model to a more mandatory data sharing. Current research suggests that these topics are of great importance to governments, as well as businesses and citizens, whose efforts should complement each other in order to enable effective data reuse and value co-creation
As such, as public and open data ecosystems promise the transformation of government data-driven actions, the fostering of public sector innovations and the collaborative smartification of cities, society and life, triggering value-adding sustainable development goals-compliant smart living and Society 5.0. New research is needed to help public managers and politicians for (1) implementing emerging technologies and technological innovations, (2) improving the achievement of sustainable development goals for increasing transparency, participation, and cooperation, and (3) meeting the stakeholders’ expectations, needs, regulations and demands.
As such, this track welcomes contributions covering, but not limited to:
The concepts of theoretical approaches toward Public Data ecosystems, Open Data ecosystems, Data Spaces, and Data Marketplaces;
Infrastructures supporting Public and Open Data Ecosystems;
The role of emerging technologies in Public and Open Data ecosystems (incl. but not limited to AI, Generative AI, LLM, NLP, cloud computing, green computing, Metaverse etc.);
Data architectures and data governance mechanisms;
Institutional aspects of implementing sustainable Public and Open Data Ecosystems;
Other sustainability dimensions of Public and Open Data Ecosystems;
Stakeholder-centric dimensions of Public and Open Data Ecosystems;
Human-Computer Interaction between users and systems (platforms);
Case studies of Public and Open Data Ecosystems, incl. but not limited to Local Government Level Data Ecosystems, e.g., Smart Cities Data Ecosystems;
The impact of Public and Open Data Ecosystems on Individuals, Organizations and Society.
The track welcomes both contributions covering the current state-of-the-art of public data ecosystems (what components constitute them, what are the relationships between these components, what makes an ecosystem resilient and sustainable), incl. individual case studies reflecting best or bad practices, as well as those addressing how these ecosystems can be transformed into more sustainable ecosystems that will “fuel” or “smartify” society (Information Society aka Society 4.0 to Super Smart Society aka Society 5.0 transition), cities and various areas of life.
The track is very aligned with the conference theme of DGO 2025, namely: Digital government fostering social cohesion for reducing inequalities. As mentioned in the theme description, “It focuses on strong social bonds in civic society, with responsive democracy and impartial law enforcement aiming at collaboratively addressing latent social conflicts. It involves building shared values in communities facing common challenges in an attempt to reduce disparities by increasing citizens’ feeling of belonging to a community and their engagement.” Public and open data ecosystems can be considered as environments that contribute to the above. Open data is aimed at reducing inequalities, open platforms constitute environments where data providers and data users find each other and collaborate and co-create to develop services and products useful for society, i.e., addressing their needs and tackling challenges society faces. While digital technologies enable the development of public and open data ecosystems, the adoption of such ecosystems has been fragmented. For instance, Van Loenen et al. (2021)[8] found that open data ecosystems “often do not balance open data supply and demand, exclude specific user groups and domains, are linear, and lack skill-training” (p. 2), which reduces their value-generation and sustainability.
Is your research related to any of the above topics? Then do not wait – submit!
🗓️🗓️🗓️Important Dates:
January 24, 2025: Papers, workshops, tutorials, and panels are due March 26, 2025: Author notifications (papers, workshops, tutorials, panels)
[1] Calzati, S., & van Loenen, B. (2023). A fourth way to the digital transformation: The data republic as a fair data ecosystem. Data & Policy, 5, e21.
[2] Lnenicka, M., Nikiforova, A., Luterek, M., Milic, P., Rudmark, D., Neumaier, S., … & Rodríguez Bolívar, M. P. (2023). Understanding the development of public data ecosystems: from a conceptual model to a six-generation model of the evolution of public data ecosystems. Available at SSRN 4831881.
[3] Nikiforova, A., Rizun, N., Ciesielska, M., Alexopoulos, C., Miletič, A.(2023). Towards High-Value Datasets determination for data-driven development: a systematic literature review. In: Lindgren,I., Csáki, C., Kalampokis, E., Janssen, M.,, Viale Pereira,G.,Virkar, S., Tambouris, E., Zuiderwijk, A.Electronic Government. EGOV 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer, Cham
[4] Kassen, M. (2020). Open data and its peers: understanding promising harbingers from Nordic Europe. Aslib Journal of Information Management, 72(5), 765-785.
[5] Santos-Hermosa, G., Quarati, A., Loría-Soriano, E., & Raffaghelli, J. E. (2023). Why Does Open Data Get Underused? A Focus on the Role of (Open) Data Literacy. In Data Cultures in Higher Education: Emergent Practices and the Challenge Ahead (pp. 145-177). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
[6] Lnenicka, M., Nikiforova, A., Luterek, M., Azeroual, O., Ukpabi, D., Valtenbergs, V., & Machova, R. (2022). Transparency of open data ecosystems in smart cities: Definition and assessment of the maturity of transparency in 22 smart cities. Sustainable Cities and Society, 82, 103906.
[7] Nikiforova, A., Lnenicka, M., Milić, P., Luterek, M., & Rodríguez Bolívar, M. P. (2024, August). From the evolution of public data ecosystems to the evolving horizons of the forward-looking intelligent public data ecosystem empowered by emerging technologies. In International Conference on Electronic Government (pp. 402-418). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.
[8] Loenen, B. van, Zuiderwijk, A., Vancauwenberghe, G., Lopez-Pellicer, F. J., Mulder, I., Alexopoulos, C., … & Flores, C. C. (2021). Towards value-creating and sustainable open data ecosystems: A comparative case study and a research agenda. JeDEM-eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government, 13(2), 1-27.
Anastasija Nikiforova, PhD 