Conference Agenda

The EU and its framework for the Digital Decade contain a “digital compass” defined by 4 dimensions. One of these is the digital skills dimension, which includes the digital skills defined in the DigComp framework. Only two European countries (the Netherlands and Finland) have more than 80% of the population with at least basic digital skills, but all other EU countries are still far from the EU’s target of having at least 80% of the population with at least basic digital skills by 2030. And Slovenia is one of these countries where only 46.7% of citizens will have at least basic digital skills by 2024. This means that there is not much time left to reach this target by 2030. And the question is, how can this be achieved?

We have used data from the EU survey on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in households and by individuals provided by EUROSTAT. We conducted a latent profile analysis (LPA) of 2585 responses to determine the detailed current state of all five dimensions of digital skills in the Slovenian population. Using covariates such as age group and income class, we were able to identify differences between different groups in terms of digital skills. A five-cluster solution proved to be optimal, where users were categorised into the following groups: highly skilled, skilled but overconfident, semi-skilled with low digital content creation skills, semi-skilled with low digital content creation skills and overconfident and low skilled. The results of the LPA analysis with covariates show that the probability of being in the low-skilled cluster increases with age, while income does not influence this probability. On the other hand, the probability of belonging to the “semi-skilled with low digital creation skills and too much trust in internet content” cluster is higher for younger groups and low-income groups.

The results of our research can help policy makers in Slovenia to better plan future steps to improve the digital skills of the population by applying different strategies for different age or income groups. If other European countries utilise the same research, similar steps can be taken to achieve the EU's overall goals.

The concept of “super-apps” is reshaping digital service delivery by consolidating multiple services under a single platform. Initially pioneered by Asian companies through applications like WeChat, Grab, and Gojek, super-apps have demonstrated high efficiency in integrating together different services such as digital payments, delivery and communication. Their key attributes include a unified user ecosystem, embedded financial services and also the ability to integrate third-party solutions.

Ukraine has the potential to lead the implementation of super-apps in public administration and digital governance. There are three main components, which can be a base for a super-app evolution. Firstly, it’s “Diia”, the government’s digital services platform, which represents the most advanced model in the public sector, offering services like digital ID management and online payments of fines and taxes. Although not yet a fully developed super-app, “Diia” already provides a solid foundation for future integration of additional public services. Secondly, in the private sector, Kyivstar, Ukraine’s leading telecommunications company, is strategically expanding its ecosystem by acquiring digital services such as the healthcare platform “Helsi”, online pharmacy “Tabletki.ua”, and taxi service “Uklon”. These acquisitions position Kyivstar as a potential pioneer in developing Ukraine’s first private-sector super-app, collecting under their umbrella such services as communication, transportation and healthcare. This has significant intersections with public services, creating opportunities for further collaboration. Thirdly, Ukraine has emerged as a leader in digital banking, with institutions like PrivatBank and Monobank advancing the neobank model. The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has adopted an open banking concept as a long-term strategy. Based on this concept, bank clients should obtain the possibility to manage multiple accounts and services from different banks through a single third-party application. This initiative could pave the way for a financial super-app, allowing seamless access to banking services from different institutions via a unified digital interface.

With its robust digital infrastructure and ongoing innovations in public and private services, Ukraine is well-positioned to become a European leader in super-app adoption. However, challenges related to cybersecurity, regulatory compliance and potential deeper governance implementations, such as e-voting, remain key topics for further discussion. The successful integration of super-apps into Ukraine’s public administration could set a precedent for digital transformation on a global scale.

According to Italian law, every act issued by a public administration is considered both a cultural asset and part of the national heritage from the moment of its creation (Art. 10(2), Legislative Decree 42/2004), and is subject to the regime of public property (Art. 822 et seq. of the Civil Code). This legal status recognizes administrative records not only as historical documents, but also as public assets essential for ensuring transparency, officials’ accountability, access to information, and judicial review due to their evidentiary value. As a result, administrative records are subject to a strict regulatory framework for protection, management, preservation, archiving, and controlled destruction, the latter subject to close oversight by public archival authorities.

The digitalization of administrative processes – driven by the Digital Administration Code (Legislative Decree 82/2005) and accelerated by National Recovery and Resilience Plan funding – has not removed these obligations but has required their adaptation to digital environments. However, the progressive dematerialization of administrative acts has paradoxically led to a decrease in institutional awareness regarding the need to preserve and govern digital documents over time and space, bringing to light a number of emerging critical issues.

The “platformization” of public administration, shaped by the new “government as a platform” paradigm, alongside shared services and inter-administrative cooperation, has created new digital administrative spaces that exceed traditional legal and organizational boundaries. This has generated uncertainty about who is responsible for managing and preserving records, often leaving administrations without access to the documents they produce. Meanwhile, the growing use of foreign-based servers raises the risk of unauthorized export of cultural assets (as administrative records are legally classified) and increases cybersecurity vulnerabilities, potentially triggering the use of exceptional administrative self-protection powers.

Moreover, the loss of physical constraints on digital storage has diminished the perceived importance of appraisal and selective destruction, leading to the indefinite retention of low-value records at the cost of unsustainable energy consumption (estimated at €7 million per year). Conversely, high-value records are often excluded from official systems and risk being lost forever.

The proposed paper combines theoretical analysis with empirical case studies to examine how the traditional archival model – managed by a single producing entity – has been replaced by fragmented digital ecosystems lacking clear governance, calling for a conceptual rethinking of archival responsibility in the context of e-Government. Its central contribution is a critique of the prevailing dominance of rationalization, efficiency, and unicity as guiding paradigms in the governance of administrative records. As an alternative, the paper proposes embracing the opposite principle of “redundancy,” understood as the intentional duplication of documentary processes and resources through mirrored repositories, hybrid preservation strategies, cross-functional archival roles, and distributed backup infrastructures.

Drawing on systems engineering and resilience theory, redundancy is presented not merely as an emergency safeguard, but as a structural and necessary feature in the daily management of public administrations. However, this approach must be balanced with economic and environmental sustainability requirements, to develop governance models capable of enabling a more equitable, resilient, and sustainable digital transition.

There is an emerging set of thinking in the UK and beyond which seeks to foreground more relational approaches to the organisation of public administration and delivery of public services in the face of a wider acceptance that the current dominant orthodoxies are failing to deliver the necessary responses to complex needs. Such a ‘relational turn’ in the ways we administer public management potentially needs a rethink of the ways in which we consider issues of data, information and systems in in a highly informated environment. Interest in Relational Public Services (RPS) and Management has been an emerging strand of interest in public administration in what has been described as a relational ‘turn’ in public administration (Bartels & Turnbull, 2018, Wilson et al., 2024, Bartels et al 2024). RPS emphasises the need to work with communities to improve the relevance and impact of proposed programmes and build capacities of local assets. Significant policy trajectories are in the midst of being shaped, demanding government and public service to be built around human rather than structural transactional relationships (Cottam 2018), local and community-based rather than distant and centralised (Lent and Studdert 2019), foregrounding the role of generalists rather than specialists (Needham and Mangan 2014), engaging in co-productive and co-creative approaches with stakeholders instead of paternalistic and bureaucratic approaches (Bartels, 2022, Baines et al 2024), capable of harnessing complexity rather than acting as if it is possible to simplify (Lowe et al. 2022), RPS suggests that NPM's emphasis on transactional approaches to 'markets, managers and measurement' have had significant effects on the ways public services are funded, designed and conditioned (Lowe and Wilson 2017, Lapsey 2024, Wilson et al 2024, Wilson et al 2025).Correspondingly the structures to operate the transactions required to make the systems ‘work’ are deeply inscribed in public service logics (Osborne, 2020) and has driven a response which foregrounds technocratic solutions (French et al., 2023; Wilson et al., 2024; Lapsley & Miller, 2024) to meet what Jamieson et al (2020) described as the need for IS to respond to the “sociotechnical challenges of complex contexts which would allow such systems to move on from the current failure modes enshrined in NPM processes. This paper sets out the case for a new form of platform for public services to respond to the need for tooling the emerging field of relational public administration which draws together a range of perspectives and approaches to analyse the platform currently being deployed in the case study of the Changing Futures programme working with citizens with multiple complex needs using McLoughlin and Wilson's (2013) sociotechnical digital government (3D) framework to analyse a new platform aimed at improving the lives of people with multiple complex needs.

Digitalization has become a defining force in public administration, yet public sector digitalization initiatives frequently fail despite considerable investments and efforts (Filgueiras & Almeida, 2021; Goh & Arenas, 2020; Torfing et al., 2020). While many potential failure factors have been explored, recent research suggests that governance plays a critical role in shaping the outcomes of these initiatives (Almeida et al., 2019; Kiselev et al., 2020; Veeneman et al., 2017). However, the relationship between governance and the outcomes of public sector digitalization initiatives remains underexplored, with limited and often conflicting empirical evidence. This study examines traditional governance modes - hierarchical, market, and networked - alongside emerging tentative governance modes like agile governance. It also explores the interplay of multiple modes within hybrid governance. This study aims to address this gap by investigating how do different governance modes affect the outcomes of digitalization initiatives?

To achieve this, we conduct a multiple case study analyzing sixteen digitalization initiatives across eight public sector organizations in Switzerland. Our case selection follows theoretical and polar sampling techniques, ensuring variation in governance settings and initiative outcomes (Eisenhardt, 2021; Langley & Abdallah, 2011). By comparing successful and failed initiatives within each organization, we isolate governance-related factors affecting performance while controlling for contextual influences.

The study relies on original semi-structured interviews with key governance actors (initiative commissioners, project committees, program and project leaders, examination authorities) and an extensive review of confidential and public documents (project agreements, stakeholder maps, management plans, reports, etc.). By incorporating multiple perspectives, including public sector stakeholders, private partners, and civil society actors, we enhance the validity and credibility of our findings while mitigating self-reporting bias (Langley & Abdallah, 2011).

This empirical research contributes to public administration literature by offering an empirically grounded theoretical model of governance in digitalization initiatives. By exploring the interplay of governance modes and their hybridization, this study provides insights into governance settings conducive to digital transformation in the public sector.

Almeida, V., Filgueiras, F., & Gaetani, F. (2019). Principles and elements of governance of digital public services. IEEE Internet Computing, 23(6), 48–53. https://doi.org/10.1109/MIC.2019.2936928

Eisenhardt, K. M. (2021). What is the Eisenhardt Method, really? Strategic Organization, 19(1), 147–160. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476127020982866

Filgueiras, F., & Almeida, V. (2021). Governance for Digital Technologies. In Governance for the Digital World (pp. 75–104). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55248-0_4

Goh, J. M., & Arenas, A. E. (2020). IT value creation in public sector: how IT-enabled capabilities mitigate tradeoffs in public organisations. European Journal of Information Systems, 29(1), 25–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/0960085X.2019.1708821

Kiselev, C., Winter, R., & Rohner, P. (2020). Project success requires context-aware governance. MIS Quarterly Executive, 19(3), 199–211. https://doi.org/10.17705/2msqe.00033

Langley, A., & Abdallah, C. (2011). Templates and turns in qualitative studies of strategy and management. Research Methodology in Strategy and Management, 6, 201–235. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-8387(2011)0000006007

Torfing, J., Bøgh Andersen, L., Greve, C., & Klausen, K. (2020). Public Governance Paradigms: Competing and Co-Existing Policy, Administrative and Institutional Change series. Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788971225

Veeneman, W., Hirschhorn, F., Klievink, B., Steenhuisen, B., & van der Voort, H. (2017). Petra Governance Handbook-WP7–Governance structures & business models: D7. 3: Governance Handbook.