Tag Society 5.0

Wrapping up 2024!🍾🥂🎇

Anastasija Nikiforova Leave a comment

It is already a good tradition at the end of the year to take a moment and wrap up the year, thus reminding myself of what was actually done, thus explaining to myself that maybe I am not as lazy as I think. However, in this post I would like to rather thank those colleagues who were with me in this. As such, let me very briefly summarize what happened (or rather with whom) and what to come in the first months of next year with the later to be spotlighted by me early next year accordingly.

This year I had the opportunity to share my experience, but more importantly, learn from others by participating in panels or plenary sessions, some of which stood out as generating some of the liveliest discussions during and after the events:

  • “Citizen urban data and smart metropolis monitoring” together with Jaewon Peter Chun (President of World Smart Cities Forum), Redouane El Haloui (President of APEBI Fédération des technologies d’information de télécommunication et de l’offshoring), Mahdi Barouni (The World Bank), Khouloud Abejja (Digital Transformation Director, Agence de Développement du Digital-ADD), Youssef El Maddarsi (CEO Naoris Consulting) that held as part of a Casablanca Smart City event (read a bit more here);
  • panel on Trust in AI together with Nicolas Cruz B., Korbinian Bösl, and Anamika Chatterjee as part of the Digital Life Norway conference oganized by Centre for Digital Life Norway (Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)), with my big thanks to Elisabeth Hyldbakk, Ingrid Shields, Kam Sripada, and many more colleagues for hospitality;
  • “Sociotechnical Transformation in the Decade of Healthy Ageing to empower the Silver Economy: Bridging the Silver Divide through Social and Digital Inclusion” with Hsien-Lee Tseng, Chin-Chien Jao, Azmat Butt, Dirk Draheim, Li-chuan Liu as part of 25th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (dg.o 2024) (read a bit more here)

To continue on discussions around research that I truly enjoyed, several conferences or tracks to which I served as one of organizers to be highlighted with credits to go to my colleagues, namely:

Selected papers from DGO2024 and EGOV2024 were invited to the “Towards sustainable public and open data ecosystems” Special Section with Information Polity, which we successfully a few weeks ago with the very last preparations before we can announce its final version – big thanks to both co-editors – Anthony, Pedro, and Anneke, as well as Albert Meijer, Kim Willems, William Webster, who supported us in the process, and the authors – Mohsan Ali, Georgios Papageorgiou, Abdul Aziz, Euripidis Loukis, Yannis Charalabidis, Charalampos Alexopoulos, and Francisco Javier López Pellicer, Alejandra Vargas, Rikke Magnussen, Birger Larsen, and Ingrid Mulder and Hsien-Lee Tseng. Stay tuned for the information about this Section!

Together with Jérôme Chenal, Stéphane C. K. Tekouabou and El Arbi Allaoui Abdellaoui we almost finalized our “Emerging Data- and Policy-driven Approaches for African Cities Challenges” Special Issue with Cambridge Press Data & Policy journal – again, stay tuned!

While the two above are those we are ready with, there is another very special issue we have together with Asif Gill, Ina Sebastian, Martin Lněnička and Anushri Gupta and tremendous assistance of Katina Michael – Special Issue “Trustworthy Data Ecosystems for Digital Societies” with IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society (read a bit more here) and we look forward your submission by 30 June 2025 very much!

And of course, several conferences where I shared my own research, gathering feedback and inspiration for future research, with brightest moments coming from The 25th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (DGO2024) (read a bit more here), and big thanks to my personal host Hsien-Lee Tseng, EGOV2024 and my special hosts Cesar Casiano Flores & Caterina Santoro, 27th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI 2024) (read a bit more here), International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS2024) (a bit more here), and several more, where I was fortunate this year to not only present my own research but also introduce my students to the community. Some of these conference papers have already expanded into journal papers, with some exciting news to share early next year!

I am also very grateful to my colleagues for their invitations to join the International Journal of Information Management (IJIM, Elsevier) and Government Information Quarterly (GIQ) Editorial Boards, Communication Committee at Digital Government Society (and one of its Chapter on which I will post later, similar to several other recent updates), and European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) FAIR Metrics and Digital Objects task force, which is rather continuation of the TF I participated in the past (“FAIR Metrics and Data Quality”).

On a slightly different note, similar to previous years, I continued delivering some courses and lectures to other universities, such as:

I am also grateful for several recognitions I have received this year (e.g., being named the best reviewer for a journal, or called to be “the top 2% of scientists“ for the second year in a row (Stanford Elsevier Top Scientists List) and top 0.5% of all scholars worldwide (0.2% in Government specialty) by SholarGPS), but probably the proudest moment for every academic is the success of our students, and as such, I want to especially mention Kevin Kliimask, whose thesis recognized by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications of Estonia at the annual Open Data Forum (Avaandmete foorum) as the best thesis of the year 🏆 🥇 🏅 (read a bit more here).

I also want to acknowledge achievements of others – this year I witnessed 3 PhD defenses and would like to congratulate Eric Jackson, Richard Dreiling and Lisa Miasayedava again, especially for such insightful discussions – I know I am quite a tough person to have in the committee (esp. as opponent – sorry Liza and Eric), but you all did a great job and I really enjoyed our discussions!

And I will skip the part about published conference and journal papers, as well as submitted project proposals and those currently in development.  Instead, some disclaimer about what is to come, with some posting at later point:

  • in the very first weeks of January, meet my very good colleagues– Anthony and Nicolas – at HICSS presenting our paper “Artificial Intelligence as a Catalyzer for Open Government Data Ecosystems: A Typological Theory Approach”, which has been already spotlighted several times, including by The Living Library, whose main goal is to identify the “signal in the noise”
  • keep an eye open for several conferences for which together with colleagues of mine we organize (mini-) tracks, with probably the most important for me at the moment:
  • AMCIS mini-track Sustainable Digital and Data Ecosystems – Navigating the Age of AI;
  • DGO2025 – “Sustainable Public and Open Data Ecosystems for Inclusive and Innovative Digital Government” track we continue with Anthony Simonofski, Anneke Zuiderwijk;
  • EGOV2025 – Emerging Issues and Innovations Track – we continue in the updated form welcoming Paula Rodriguez Muller who will be joining me and Francesco Murredu!
  • And for Data for Policy CIC, we will slightly change the role we played the last year, and together with Sarah Giest, Bram Klievnik Iryna Susha, Florin Coman Kund, Leid Zejnilovic Laura, we are very excited to invite you to the Data for Policy CIC 2025 Conference (Leiden University, The Hague, Netherlands 🇳🇱) for which we serve as Regional Conference Committee
  • Finally, do meet me at European Open Data Days 2025 in March to discuss recent (and future) advances in the world of open data with me sharing insights on how Artificial Intelligence can serve as a catalyst for transforming public and open data ecosystems, exploring the various AI roles at data, portal and ecosystem levels driving innovation, enhancing governance, and boosting citizen engagement;
  • and meet me as a keynote for the International Conference on Innovative Approaches and Applications for Sustainable Development (I2ASD) in April with more details to come!

This is rather a very short list of the events and people I wanted to emphasize, and my apologizes if I missed someone (and I definitely missed). All in all, it was a busy and eventful year,  – really grateful for all the opportunities it brought to me and lessons (both positive and negative, rather willing to have positive ones only though) and people I met. I really hope that the next year will be even better. And in this regard, I wish us all a peaceful, joyful and productive year!

Thank 2024 and bye! Welcome 2025! Happy 2025!

DGO 2025 “Sustainable Public and Open Data Ecosystems for inclusive and innovative government” track

Anastasija Nikiforova 1 Comment

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.

The Estonian Open Data Forum – Celebrating Progress and Recognizing Achievements

Anastasija Nikiforova 2 Comments

This October, I had the distinct honor of participating in Estonia’s premier event on open data, the Open Data Forum (Avaandmete foorum), organized by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications of Estonia, invited to talk about the role of academia and private sector in the open government data landscape. This annual gathering brings together industry experts, academic researchers, and government leaders to discuss key trends, achievements, and the future of open data in Estonia, along with highlighting the contributions coming from universities awarding the best dissertations developed by Estonian students. The latter made this event very special for me, as one of my students – Kevin Kliimask – was awarded for his outstanding bachelor’s thesis 🏆 🥇 🏅!

In his thesis –“Automated Tagging of Datasets to Improve Data Findability on Open Government Data Portals,” Kevin developed an LLM-powered interface to automate dataset tagging in both English and Estonian, thereby augmenting metadata preparation by data publishers and improving data findability on portals by users – as the practice shows their presence tend to be a challenge. E.g., our analysis conducted on the Estonian Open Data Portal, revealed that 11% datasets have no associated tags, while 26% had only one tag assigned to them, which underscores challenges in data findability and accessibility within the portal, which, according to the recent Open Data Maturity Report, is considered trend-setter. The developed solution was evaluated by users and their feedback was collected to define an agenda for future prototype improvements. The thesis has been already transformed into the scientific paper 👉 “TAGIFY: LLM-powered Tagging Interface for Improved Data Findability on OGD portals“ presented at the IEEE international conference (I posted on this earlier 👉 here).

As for my talk titled “Unlocking the Power of Open Data: The Role of Academia and the Private Sector in Building Inclusive and Sustainable Open Data Ecosystems,” I emphasized the need for a holistic approach to open data that transcends merely opening/publishing data, rather requiring adopting a systemic view that considers an open data initiative as an Open Data Ecosystem (also confirmed by Open Data Charter 👉here), as we deal not only with open data (availability), portal, stakeholders, actors, but also processes surrounding them, emerging technologies & different forms of intelligence, going beyond just Artificial Intelligence, whose role, however, is crucial (see our paper on the eight-fold role of AI in OGD).

As such, while discussing the main idea of ​​the talk – the role of academia & the private sector in the ODE, which as per me is at least four-fold, namely – data consumers, data providers, contributors to ODE sustainability & myth busters on the global stage (assigning “Made in Estonia” tag to OGD in addition to the one we have for e-government), I also expanded the general mantra of “Data For AI” to “data for AI, AI for data, data not only for AI and not only AI for data”.


A big thank you to the organisers, who gathered so many speakers (Cybernetica, FinEst Centre for Smart Cities, Riigi Infosüsteemi Amet // Estonian Information System Authority (NCSC-EE), University of Tartu and many others) to discuss the highlights of today & tomorrow for Estonian Open Data and High-Value Datasets in particular as it was the main focus of the Forum – was happy to be part of these discussions!

CFP for Special Issue in IEEE Transactions on Technology & Society: Trustworthy Data Ecosystems for Digital Societies

Anastasija Nikiforova 1 Comment

IEEE Transactions on Technology & Society launches the new Special Issue on the “Trustworthy Data Ecosystems for Digital Societies“, edited by Asif Gill, Anastasija Nikiforova, Ina M. Sebastian, Martin Lnenicka, Anushri Gupta. On behalf of the editors of this SI, I sincerely invite you to consider submitting your work to it.

Key topics surround intersection of data ecosystem and AI topics, i.e., AI in and for trustworthy data ecosystems, and include, but are not limited to:

  • Impact of trustworthy data ecosystem on digital societies at the local, national and global levels
  • Conceptualization of trustworthy data ecosystems domains and characteristics for digital societies
  • Data trust regulations, polices, strategies and standards
  • Trustworthy data ecosystem infrastructure as a social construct
  • Trustworthy data ecosystem architecture, interfaces, methodologies, orchestration, patterns, solutions, and technology platforms
  • System and data quality, governance, security, privacy, protection, and safety
  • Data linking, interoperability, sharing and observability

Read more in the below CFP or here.

IEEE TTS cfp Gill et al 2025-2Download

Guest Lecture for the Federal University of Technology – Paraná (UTFPR) on “Unlocking the symbiotic relationship of Artificial Intelligence, Data Intelligence, Collaborative Intelligence, and Embodied Intelligence for innovative urban planning and governance of Smart Cities”

Anastasija Nikiforova 1 Comment

This May, I had a pleasure to deliver one more guest lecture for master and doctoral students of the Federal University of Technology – Paraná (Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR)) as part of Smart Cities course delivered by prof. Regina Negri Pagani. This time the topic of my lecture was “Unlocking the symbiotic relationship of Artificial Intelligence, Data Intelligence, Collaborative Intelligence, and Embodied Intelligence for innovative urban planning and governance of Smart Cities”.

In the pursuit of enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of Artificial Intelligence, it is imperative to explore synergies with other form of intelligence, such Data Intelligence and Collaborative intelligence. These forms of intelligence (along with Embodied Intelligence) constitute a new transformative paradigm of intelligence proposed by Verhulst et al. (2021) that offers potential for increased added value when synergized. However, their synergy requires understanding and harnessing the symbiotic relationship between these intelligences. The reimagination of decision making and problem-solving processes, is essential to unlock this symbiotic potential fostering more meaningful, but at the very same time more sustainable AI utilization. In other words, AI itself brings a certain value that can be (and must be) increased through integration with other forms of Intelligence. This, in turn, has a list of preconditions / prerequisites that must be satisfied by the above – Artificial, Data, Collaborative, and Embodied Intelligence – components. These prerequisites are diverse in nature and span both the artifacts in question, such as AI, data (type, format, quality, value, availability, accessibility, incl. openness), stakeholders’ skills and literacies, but also management and organizational aspects. In other words, each form of Intelligence influences the others, making it crucial to explore their interconnections. This talk endeavoured to uncover this intricate web of relationships between the three forms of intelligence, taking a step towards a more meaningful and intelligent approach to decision making and problem solving.

As part of this talk we referred to the theory of multiple intelligences by Howard Gardner presented in his famous book “Frames of Mind: A Theory of Multiple Intelligences”. Then, we referred to the above mentioned intelligence paradigm proposed by Stefaan G. Verhulst, Peter Martey Addo, Dominik Baumann, Juliet Mcmurren, Andrew Young, Andrew J. Zahuranec in “Emerging Uses of Technology for Development: A New Intelligence Paradigm“. Then, we finally turned to the actual discussion on the symbiotic relationship of Artificial Intelligence, Data Intelligence, Embodied Intelligence, Collaborative Intelligence, and Generative AI uncovering this intricate web of relationships between these forms of intelligence, putting the above into several contexts with a focus on public & public and open data ecosystems. The later topics, in turn, covered some of my previous research (such as “Sustainable open data ecosystems in smart cities: A platform theory-based analysis of 19 European cities, ” “Identifying patterns and recommendations of and for sustainable open data initiatives: A benchmarking-driven analysis of open government data initiatives among European countries“, “Transparency of open data ecosystems in smart cities: Definition and assessment of the maturity of transparency in 22 smart cities“ etc.). As such, we tried to indicate future avenues in the light of changing paradigms (or need for such) for intelligences, data ecosystems, mechanisms for citizen engagement & processes (incl., but not limited to data governance & data quality management) accompanying these ecosystems


This followed up by the fruitful discussion with the participants of the course that I enjoyed very much. I can only hope that this lecture was just a little bit as interesting as my dear Regina characterized it! There is nothing better than hear an immediate invitation for the next editions of this course – will be glad to continue this tradition!