ECePS conference 2025
"Promises and Paradoxes of Open Data"
ECePS Final Conference
Date: Thursday, February 13th 2025
Venue: UT Delta Centre, Narva mnt 18, Room: 1005 in Tartu, Estonia
As electronic public services become more widespread, there is a growing awareness that new generations of electronic services need to be more accessible, intelligent, secure, trustworthy and cross-border. At the same time, we see that the increased availability of data offers fascinating opportunities for even more advanced public services, new business developments and academic research. As with many other promises, we see that high expectations are at least occasionally dashed in complex trialogues between government, business and academia. The conference will look at the findings of the ECePS ERA Chair researchers on e-governance over the last few years. In addition, a series of panels will bring together academics, government officials and industry representatives to discuss their experiences in accessing and sharing data for impact.
The conference is organised by the ECePS ERA Chair, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 857622.
Have a look at the video summary from the conference:
Photos from the conference
Agenda
9.30 Welcome coffee10.00 Opening address by Prof. Dr. Vincent Homburg, ERA Chair, full professor of e-Governance and Digital Public Services, Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu.
10.05 Session I Showcasing ECePS research – Navigating Digital Frontiers in Political Science
Presentations by the junior research fellows in e-Governance of the ECePS research team:
- Art Alishani
- Logan Emily Carmichael
- Stefan Dedovic
- Biao He
- Bogdan Romanov
Followed by discussion and Q&A
12.00 – 13.00 Lunch
13.00 - 14.00 Panel I – Researchers: Dialogue of the Digital Deaf? Why Available Data is not Usable in Research. Moderated by Prof Vincent Homburg
Evelyn Uuemaa, Department of Geography Head of Chair, Professor of Geoinformatics, UT.
Külli Taro, Head of Knowledge Transfer, Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology
Ott Velsberg, Government Chief Data Officer, Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs
Mihkel Solvak, Deputy Head for Development, Associate Professor of Technology Research, Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, UT.
14.00 - 14.30 Coffee and stretching break
14.30 - 15.30 Panel II – Applications/Private sector: How to Move from “dead” Studies to “live” Services/Products Using the Same Data? Moderated by Dr Mihkel Solvak
Dan Bogdanov, Chief Scientific Officer, Cybernetica AS
Kristjan Lemmsalu, Head of Data Unit, Estonian Information System Authority
Andres Raieste, Senior Vice President, Public sector (global) at Nortal AS
Veiko Berendsen, Data Governance Expert at Statistics Estonia
15.45 - 16.10 Conclusions and take-aways from the conference
16.25 Transfer to the Estonian National Museum
16.40 - 17.40 Visiting Ryoji Ikeda´s exhibition Data Universe, introduction by Timo Toots – a multidisciplinary artist, whose works concentrate on the relations between humans, technology and nature; he is the founder of Maajaam
Ryoji Ikeda is known for his unique style that combines scientific data and technology into contemporary artworks. His solo exhibition is based on the scientific data from the UT´s Institute of Genomics and is one of the highlights of Tartu 2024 European Capital of Culture year.
Both Timo Toots and Ryoji Ikeda have won Ars Electronica Golden Nica award for interactive arts.
17.40 Transfer back to the centre
19.30 Conference dinner (with pre-registration only) at the Restaurant University Cafe at Ülikooli 20, Tartu
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Speakers
Biao He
Biao He is a junior researcher at the University of Tartu. Biao 's research focuses on how e-government
initiatives in China, specifically the provision of disability- and
age-friendly e-government applications and services, are implemented in local governments.
His research aims to identify the influence factors related to the local
e-government initiative implementation, the interrelationship among such
factors, and their impacts on shaping the implementation results by using
single and comparative case analysis.
Bogdan Romanov
Bogdan Romanov is a junior researcher at the University of Tartu. Trust-building mechanisms in the online voting platforms and designs of the international online voting systems (i.e., Switzerland, Russia, Estonia, etc.) as well as e-governance manifestations in general. The topics are analyzed both with the quantitative (statistics, ML) and qualitative (interviews, q-methodology) methods.
Art Alishani
Art Alishani is a junior researcher at the University of Tartu. His research focuses on the development and implementation of artificial intelligence chatbots in public service delivery, and the implications the technologies have for interactions between citizens and government. Art's research involves studying use cases of chatbots in Estonia, employing both qualitative methods, such as interviews, and quantitative methods, like survey vignette experiments.
Logan Carmichael
Logan Carmichael is a junior researcher at the University of Tartu. Her research focus is on cybersecurity governance and digitalisation, with her PhD research particularly drawing from the Estonian case study.
Stefan Dedovic
Stefan Dedovic is junior research fellow at the University of Tartu. He is researching the development and implementation of cross-border digital public services in the EU.
Moderator Prof Vincent Homburg
ERA Chair Professor Vincent Homburg has been teaching and researching eGovernment for several decades. Vincent Homburg has a background in public administration (MSc) and information systems (PhD) and has published more than 70 articles, books and book chapters. His articles have appeared in International Review of Administrative Sciences, Journal of Behaviour and Information Technology, and The Information Society, among others, and he has authored or contributed to books published by Routledge and Palgrave Macmillan.
Panel I
Dr Külli Taro
Dr. Külli Taro is the Head of Knowledge Transfer and Director of the Public Administration and Innovation Master's Program at the Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance at Tallinn University of Technology. She holds a PhD in public administration from Tallinn University of Technology and completed her undergraduate and master’s degrees at the University of Tartu. Additionally, she has studied at the University of Helsinki and the University of Konstanz.
Throughout her extensive career in civil service, she has worked for the Estonian Parliament, the National Audit Office of Estonia, and the Chancellor of Justice. She has also lectured at both the University of Tartu and Tallinn University of Technology. Her academic interests encompass the political and administrative foundations of the state and performance management in the public sector.
She has been an active participant in several expert panels and international working groups. Notably, she currently serves as the head of the Council of Ethics for Officials, appointed by the government, and a member of the Council of the Estonian Cooperation Assembly, appointed by the President of Estonia. She is also a member of the Open Government Development Committee, appointed by the Secretary of State of Estonia.
Prof Evelyn Uuemaa
Evelyn Uuemaa is Professor in Geoinformatics in the Department of Geography at the University of Tartu. Her main research interests lie in big geospatial data management, data quality and environmental modelling using remote sensing data. She is also interested in geovisualization and has created over a hundred maps. She is currently leading the Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Land Use, as well as the ERC Consolidator grant and coordinating Erasmus+ MSc in Geo-information Science and Earth Observation for Environmental Modelling and Management at University of Tartu.
Ott Velsberg
Ott Velsberg is the current Chief Data Officer of Estonian Government with experience in coordinating data governance and data science, including domains of artificial intelligence, open data, citizen-centric data governance, data privacy and regulation, once-only principle, and data architecture. In addition, he is also a research fellow at the Faculty of Informatics at the University of Umea, focusing on the Internet of Things and data analytics.
Dr Mihkel Solvak
Mihkel Solvak is an Associate Professor in Technology Research at the University of Tartu and Vice Dean for Research and Development of the Faculty of Social Sciences. He manages a research group that develops and pilots data driven machine learning powered digital services in Estonia using registry and log data. He also researches what factors lead more likely to uptake of digital services and how trust affects service usage.
Panel II
Veiko Berendsen
Veiko Berendsen is the Data Governance Expert at the Statistics Estonia (the national statistics office). He is interested in data and metadata, and in information management, involving all its aspects: documents and records management, digital archive, enterprise information management and governance.
Andres Raieste
As a Senior Vice President at Nortal, a leading global government consulting and digital services powerhouse, Andres is responsible for growth, innovation and leadership in public sector industry. With over 15 years of experience in the industry, Andres began his career in Estonia as a digital government expert. Since then, he has been responsible for many high-impact large-scale government transformation programs and reforms globally, as well as produced thought leadership and developed practices to make governments digital and deliver better services to its citizen.
Dan Bogdanov
Dr. Dan Bogdanov met his first significant security and privacy challenges while working on the data collection systems of the Estonian Genome Center. This led him down the path of a PhD in cryptography and development of privacy and cybersecurity technologies. He has worked on cryptography, privacy and cybersecurity projects funded by European Commission, US DARPA, US Office of Naval Research Global, European Defense Fund and Estonian agencies. He currently works in Cybernetica and he is also the head of the Standing Committee on Cybersecurity at the Estonian Academy of Sciences.
Kristjan Lemmsalu
Kristjan Lemmsalu is the Head of Data Unit at Estonia´s Information System Authority and visionary who creates and protects the best digital society in the world. The Data Unit's focus is on human-centred data management, data-driven governance and data re-use. Kristjan believes that a key challenge for the digital state is to deliver increasingly personalised services to citizens. To do this, digital platforms and services need content i.e. data.
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For participants
For participants
Access to Tartu
Tartu can best accessed by air via Tallinn, capital of Estonia. Tallinn airport has good connections to major European cities. From Tallinn, Tartu is easily accessible by public transportation. The express bus to and from Tartu Bus Station stops at the Tallinn airport and departs every hour. The Tallinn train station ‘Ülemiste’ is easily reachable by tram from the airport, and trains to Tartu run every few hours. In addition, an express bus between Riga and Tartu runs several times a day.
Conference venue
University of Tartu Delta Centre, one of the most modern centres of digital technology, analytical and economic thought in the Nordic region. Built in 2020, Delta Centre is a modern academic and research centre of the University of Tartu, focusing on cooperation between the university, society and business. It brings together the fields of computer science, robotics, technology, mathematics, statistics, economics, management and business.
The Delta Centre is located in the city centre of Tartu, within walking distance from the Old town, city centre hotels and restaurants. More information about the venue can be found here: https://delta.ut.ee/en/.