Increasing real-world impact of digital government research – Contextualize, internationalize, strategize
After more than 25 years of investment into digital government research, innovation and development, the key questions today are about the impact of digital government on public service delivery, internal management, and policy outcomes, whether digital government delivers on its promises, and what is the role of research in translating promises into outcomes. However, most progress in digital government is driven by a combination of digital innovations, public expectations, and international competition, not research.
While researchers traditionally compete for the attention of each other and measure their success in terms of citations, publicly-funded research projects and institutions are increasingly required to demonstrate real-world impact. This is particularly so for digital government research given the origins of the domain, and the sensitive nature of digital government as a critical capability of the state. However, metricizing real-word impact is often difficult – the impact is subtle, slow and variable; counterproductive – it promotes short-term thinking, and risky – “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure” (Goodhart’s Law).
The keynote will explore whether and how digital government research can increase its real-world impact. To this end, it will examine the challenges digital government researchers face to focus on the real-world impact; explore three approaches to overcoming such challenges – contextualize, internationalize and strategize; and provide evidence, based on the body of articles published in Government Information Quarterly between 1984 and 2024, to what extent are such approaches pursued and what are the notable gaps. Finally, the keynote will offer some recommendations for digital government researchers pursuing real-world impact, and open a discussion on collaboration between digital government research and policy institutions, community organizations and researchers/groups aimed at generating real-world impact.
