News

Important milestones on the ECePS journey are approaching as two of its junior research fellows, Logan Carmichael and Stefan Dedovic, prepare to defend their dissertations in March.

On 18 February 2026, the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies hosted a delegation from ESPOL – the European School of Political and Social Sciences at Lille Catholic University – for a full‑day study visit in Tartu. The programme introduced the guests to Estonia’s digital governance model, cyber security practices, and the political environment that has enabled the country’s digital transformation.

In a significant step toward more intensive academic cooperation in the Baltic and Nordic region, ECePS has partnered with Vidzemes University of Applied Sciences in Latvia and the University of Jyväskylä in Finland to contribute to digital leadership capacity building.  

When the Johan Skytte Institute launched the ECePS project in 2019, a newly assembled team stepped into a bold and demanding mission: to elevate the University of Tartu’s research excellence in e‑governance and digital public services. Ambitious missions rarely unfold smoothly, and this one was not an exception. Over five years, the team navigated a landscape of pandemic lockdowns, geopolitical turbulence, and persistent staffing challenges. Teaching, research, and outreach continued, but “never a dull moment” became an inside joke within the team. 

On 9 May, the ECePS ERA Chair team was delighted to welcome a delegation of MA and PhD students from the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, accompanied by representatives of the foundation. The visit was part of a wider study tour across Tallinn and Tartu, during which the delegation visited us to learn more about the e-Estonia narrative and the research we conducted at ECePS on digital governance, internet voting, artificial intelligence, and state transformation in the digital era.

Earlier this spring, ECePS Junior Research Fellow Biao He co-authored and published an article in Transforming Government: People, Processes and Policy. With more and more public services now becoming available through digital means, attention is being given by international bodies and national governments to make digital public services available to all, including to people with disabilities and senior citizens. Most public services are however delivered by municipal governments, and it is up to these governments to implement inclusive electronic public services.

President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Visiting Professor of Democracy in the Digital Age at the University of Tartu, will deliver two public lectures in May, hosted by the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies. The lectures will address timely topics related to digital governance, democracy, and regional security.

On 26 March 2025, the ECePS team, together with colleagues from the Skytte Institute, had the pleasure of welcoming a high-level delegation from Romania's recently established EDGE Institute - a think tank that serves as a catalyst for Romania's digital transformation. The visit to Tartu was part of a wider fact-finding mission to Estonia, during which the delegation engaged with a wide range of public and private institutions across the country to learn from Estonia's experience in digital governance, innovation and transformation. 

On Wednesday 26 February, Masters students from the "Digital Politics and Governance" programme of the European School of Political and Social Sciences (ESPOL, Université Catholique de Lille, France) visited the ERA Chair team to learn about academic research on Estonian e-governance and digital services, and to reflect on their observations and impressions from their study tour of Estonia so far. The French students, accompanied by Associate Professor and Programme Manager Dr Félix Von Nostitz and Assistant Professor Dr Alice Iannantuoni, were welcomed by ERA Chair and Professor of E-Governance Vincent Homburg and met several students from the Johan Skytte Institute's Bachelor and Master programmes.

A new white paper titled "Improving Estonian R&I Framework" has been released, shedding light on the current state of research and innovation (R&I) in Estonia and proposing pragmatic solutions to enhance its sustainability and impact. This comprehensive document, authored by leading experts in the field, identifies critical challenges and offers actionable recommendations to address them. The white paper is now available for download, providing valuable insights for policymakers, researchers, and stakeholders in the R&I ecosystem.

On Thursday 13 February, the ECePS ERA Chair team hosted a final conference in the Delta building of the University of Tartu. Nearly seventy academics, industry representatives, policy makers and students gathered to learn more about the research conducted by the ECePS Junior Research Fellows in e-governance and to discuss ongoing open data research and business challenges in two engaging panel discussions with representatives from academia, government and business, hosted by ERA Chair team members Prof Dr Vincent Homburg and Dr Mihkel Solvak.

Today, as a warm-up exercise and pre-event for the Final ECePS conference, long-term ECePS friend dr David Duenas Cid from Kozminski University, Warshaw (Poland) gave an inspiring talk about his research on trust in e-voting technology. As a scholar that was initially trained as a sociologist, David has developed a passion for trust in institutions, individuals and technologies, and in the past years he specialized and became an internationally recognized expert in the field of trust in voting technologies. He has been invited to conduct lectures and share his research findings in Australia, Austria, El Salvador, Georgia, Hungary, Japan, Poland, Spain … and Estonia.

On January 16, the ERA chair Prof Homburg contributed to the kick-off of the Dutch Policy Programme on Generic Digital Infrastructures in the Hague, for which hundreds of specialists and policy advisors gathered to discuss the building blocks and governance structures for information sharing in the Netherlands. Both the latest academic literature and the Estonian experience were used to give the insights.

On 21 November, ERA Chair and Professor of E-Governance Vincent Homburg attended the 26th Dutch ECP Conference, a platform where politicians, civil servants, academics and business representatives meet to discuss the future of digital societies. Prof Homburg contributed to a series of expert advice on digitalisation, including a chapter 'Immersion, key to success?', which was published in a book Unfiltered expert advice for the digital government. 

The third international summer school Civic Competence in Creative Cities - How digital Innovations Contribute to Durable Democracies - organised by the ECePS ERA Chair team, took place in person in Tartu from 28 July to 7 August (3 ECTS) and continued online on Moodle from 12 August to 23 August (2 ECTS). Together with the co-organiser KU Leuven and partners from the Catholic University of Lille, the University of Leiden, Masaryk University, the Art Academy of Latvia and the City of Tartu, 24 students from diverse backgrounds and from various European countries, the USA and China set out to learn and explore how digital innovations can contribute to lasting democracies. 

The Summer School „Civic Competence in Creative Cities: How Digital Innovations Contribute to Durable Democracies“ will focus on how to use digital innovations in public administrations to unlock and implement civic competence.  

From 10 to 12 May, Estonian green transition region Ida-Virumaa hosted the DIGI+GREEN hackathon, where teams competed to find solutions on how to make the currently collected data work better for the benefit of green transition.

Join us at the unique hackathon focusing on digital services supporting and leading a green transition. As part of this innovative event, participants will work on co-creating solutions using digital tools and data to help lead and support the biggest change of our generation – the green transition.

We are happy to announce that our team together with Nortal and Ministry of Communications and Economic Affairs has published a white paper on personal government. 
The journey toward personal government is already on its way in several societies. This white paper discusses the desired outcomes and impact of personal government, but also proposes known and explored key capabilities to create it.

ECePS ERA Chair and REPAIR joint session to reflect on Dutch National Elections 2023: Lessons to Learn on Thursday, December 7, 2023

ECePS will co-organise the Sino-Nordic Workshop 'Development, opportunities and challenges of digital transformation of welfare services in China and the Nordic Countries', together with Oslo Metropolitan University, University of Helsinki, and Nordic Center Fudan University, in Shanghai on December 14-15 2023.

We are organising the final event of mGov4EU Project, taking place in Brussels on December 4th 2023. The conference will be on “Cross-border mobile e-services for European benefit”

What can we learn from Estonia when it comes to e-voting?
You have now the opportunity to learn from the longest-running and arguably the most successful example in that regard.
The e-course will start on October 15, 2023.

In today's digital landscape, few nations have embraced online voting as effectively as Estonia. In his latest article Bogdan Romanov, our JRF, delves into the how, why, and when of Estonia's groundbreaking online electoral system. If you're keen to understand how technology is reshaping the pillars of democracy, read more here!

In the summer of 2023, we organsied the summer school on Agile Government in the Digital Era. The summer school took place on online 5 July to 2 August, in Tartu on 4–11 August, 2023.

Logan Carmichael, our junior research fellow has spread the word about the interesting work she is doing as part of her research on cyber security and digital governmental services. 

Vincent Homburg, Professor of E-Governance, talks about the intertwining of politics and technology in his inaugural lecture

We are happy to announce that as of the 1st of November 2022, Prof Dr Vincent Homburg will become the ERA Chair of “e-Governance and Digital Public Services”. During the past two years, Vincent Homburg was visiting professor with the ECePS ERA chair team at the Center for IT Impact Studies CITIS. In his new role, he will supervise junior research fellows with their PhD research and teaching in the international MA programme “Politics and Governance in the Digital Age”.

ECePS ERA Chair Summer School on Building Digital Governments

The Summer School will be hosted by University of Tartu, in collaboration with University of Konstanz, Harvard University, Erasmus University Rotterdam, KU Leuven, and City of Tartu.

Credits: 4 ECTS, possibility to extend to 6 ECTS

Time: August 1-14, 2022

Due to pandemic situation the conference has been postponed to May 20th 2022. 

The spread of disinformation is not a phenomenon of today’s time, but it has been exacerbated via its circulation through social media platforms, powered by AI and has become a critical challenge. It casts a shadow over the integrity of public debate and elections, undermining citizens’ trust in democratic institutions, while also negatively impacting on the accuracy and reliability of the information that feeds public opinion.

Disinformation by digital means can by its size and sophistication threaten the bases and essential elements of democracy, the institutions and processes of the state, and the cohesion and proper functioning of society. Digital disinformation is more illegitimate when originating abroad. No country or society is immune from such influence.

On 16 September at 16:15, Robert Krimmer, Professor of E-governance of the University of Tartu, delivered his inaugural lecture “Digital Transformation of the Public Sector: How to build our digital future” in the assembly hall of the University of Tartu.

The next admission round takes place on 1-15 May (candidates with previous degrees from outside Estonia) and on 1-15 June (applicants with previous degrees from Estonia), with studies set to commence in September 2021.

CITIS team won the competition for the best app in the national digital public services with their Decision Support Tool OTT for Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund!

Held on 6–9 October 2020, the Fifth International Joint Conference on Electronic Voting (E-Vote-ID) brought together more than 180 e-voting specialists from academia, government and industry from 32 countries around the world in order to discuss various aspects of electronic voting.

World-leading e-governance expert Robert Krimmer elected as Professor of the University of Tartu.

The senate of the University of Tartu elected Robert Krimmer, one of the most influential e-governance experts in the world, as Professor of E-governance of the University of Tartu. Professor Krimmer will lead the established ERA Chair research group at the university to bring research in the field of e-governance and public e-services to international excellence and foster the development of e-governance in Estonia.

The Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies at the University of Tartu invites applications for a fully-funded PhD position on e-governance and digital public services in the academic year 2020/2021

On Tuesday, 19 November 2019, the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies hosted Mr Hector de Rivoire, Economic Advisor at the Embassy of France in Tallinn, who gave a guest lecture on "Artificial Intelligence: France’s Strategy and EU agenda".

Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies of the University of Tartu received the ERA Chair grant of 2.5 million euros from the European Union to develop a world-leading research team on e-governance, public e-services and to advance e-governance innovation in Estonia.