News

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.

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 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.

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

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”.

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.

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.