GovTech is emerging as a policy-relevant frame at the intersection of digital government, public procurement, and startup innovation. Yet research remains fragmented and often disconnected from the institutional conditions that shape implementable solutions. This paper develops a stakeholder-validated, dimensional publicness theory informed research agenda for GovTech in the European context using a multiround agenda-setting Delphi study with experts from public administrations, industry, and academia. Synthesizing qualitative inputs and quantitative prioritization, we identify thematic clusters and topic areas, formulate exemplary research questions, and provide rationales that connect each area to concrete governance and implementation challenges. To assess dynamism, we additionally examine perceived relevance trends across two measurement points (2023 and 2025), highlighting where urgency is increasing and where research sequencing is needed. The resulting agenda informs scholarship by clarifying GovTech as a hybrid, regulation-shaped domain and offers entry points for empirical and design-oriented research on ecosystem formation, procurement, regulation, and strategic scaling.
The aim of this Article is to reconsider the GovTech paradigm beyond its common positioning as an extension of e-government, to identify the main mechanisms through which GovTech may shape business R&D and innovation, and to develop a preliminary conceptual framework for further research in the context of the twin (digital and green) transition. Building on a structured literature review of key conceptual and policy-oriented sources, the paper analyses GovTech through three interconnected perspectives: (1) innovation governance and the state’s evolving role from service provider to market shaper and first customer; (2) data-driven and technology-enabled public sector innovation, including data governance, open data ecosystems, AI adoption, and experimentation instruments such as sandboxes; and (3) ecosystem-based public-private collaboration mechanisms, through which public sector demand and procurement are used to encourage firms to develop innovative solutions. The review suggests that GovTech is defined inconsistently and that links between GovTech instruments and business R&D and innovation outcomes remain insufficiently clarified, particularly when twin transition goals are treated as constraints rather than strategic drivers. The Article concludes by formulating a focused problem statement and outlining a preliminary conceptual framework for subsequent empirical research on GovTech and business innovation.
Martynas Jusys, V. Davidavičienė· International Scientific Con...· 0 citations
Digital transformation is widely viewed as a productivity and competitiveness imperative, yet its diffusion remains uneven in many emerging economies where firms face binding constraints in skills, finance, infrastructure, governance, and digital trust. This article develops an evidence-based prioritization of digital transformation barriers for the Republic of Azerbaijan by integrating enterprise survey evidence with expert consensus building and multi-criteria decision-making. The empirical base combines a 2024 survey of 450 enterprises (200 medium and large firms and 250 SMEs) across key industries with a two-round Delphi exercise involving 15 experts from government, ICT industry, business associations, and academia. Barriers are prioritized using a hybrid Delphi-TOPSIS model under three implementation-oriented criteria (expected impact, feasibility, and cost/risk). The revised version strengthens the methodological explanation by clarifying Delphi expert-selection filters, expanding the interpretation of the methods section, adding scenario-based robustness discussion, and linking observable adoption indicators such as ERP/CRM and cloud use to barrier severity. Results indicate that the shortage of qualified digital personnel is the most critical barrier (closeness coefficient 0.78), followed by limited financial resources for digital investments (0.75), weak regional digital infrastructure (0.62), cybersecurity readiness gaps (0.59), and organizational resistance to change (0.55). The ranking implies that Azerbaijan’s transition is constrained less by connectivity alone than by complementary intangible inputs - skills, financing and managerial capability - that determine firms’ absorptive capacity. The study contributes a context-specific prioritization and validation procedure suitable for emerging economies and translates rankings into targeted policy and managerial packages, including a sequenced implementation roadmap and monitoring indicators.
H. Arzu, Salimli Huseyn· International Journal of App...· 0 citations
Systemic change across the digital research landscape is required to reduce the environmental impact of digital research, but while many researchers and technical professionals are motivated to act, they often lack the skills required to translate motivation into lasting organisational change. We present an open-access course that teaches the foundations of advocacy and organisational change to researchers, research software engineers, and research technical professionals. Structured around the UNICEF five-step advocacy cycle, the course covers stakeholder analysis, power mapping, coalition building, storytelling, framing and messaging, and evaluation. It is grounded in the UK policy landscape, including the Concordat for Environmental Sustainability and the UKRI Environmental Sustainability Strategy, and uses a fictional case study to make concepts concrete. The course is designed as a dual-layer resource in which workshop slides and extended self-study notes are contained in a single source material. A short pilot was delivered at the NetDRIVE Net Zero DRI Summer School in June 2026. The course is freely available under a CC BY 4.0 licence.
Kirsty Pringle, Lorna Smith, Erinma Ochu et al.· 0 citations
This article offers a conceptual synthesis that examines how digital platforms can mediate public service delivery to generate public value, drawing on the Gancang Aron initiative in Banyuwangi Regency, Indonesia, as an illustrative case. Moving away from previous studies that tend to evaluate outcomes partially or treat partner platforms purely as logistics providers, this article offers significant conceptual novelty through three major contributions. First, it reframes the Gancang Aron program as a form of digital disruption mobilized for public value creation by integrating three theoretical frameworks—digital governance, platform governance theory, and the public-value framework—into a single unified analytical lens that has not been previously applied to this program. Second, this study consolidates scattered empirical accounts into a comprehensive and integrated public value map encompassing eight dimensions of value (efficiency, accessibility, accountability, security, collaboration, empathy, trust, and human-centric orientation). The article argues that these values are not experienced by citizens as isolated outcomes but are rather co-produced as a holistic, integrated whole. Third, by situating the dynamics of Banyuwangi within the trajectory of post-decentralization reforms in Indonesia, this article provides a crucial Global South perspective to the global platform governance debate, which has historically been dominated by case studies from advanced jurisdictions (OECD) with high administrative capacities. Through this synthesis, it demonstrates that meaningful public service innovation requires institutional adaptability and cross-sector partnerships alongside the technological infrastructure itself.
What is new?
As financial pressures intensify and research becomes more complex and interdependent, universities are increasingly prioritising collaborative work within and beyond academia. This shift has revealed a significant gap in co-production and collaboration and a critical need for professional support in identifying stakeholders and developing and facilitating partnerships across disciplines and sectors. This paper addresses that gap by combining an evidence base grounded in academic literature with insights from practice to create a transferable framework for research-enabling staff. The framework provides the tools needed to drive the culture shift essential for universities to navigate complexity, strengthen collaboration, and remain competitive in a rapidly changing landscape.
What was the approach?
This work combines systems thinking, stakeholder theory, and qualitative, practice-based insights. The conceptual framing draws on a literature review of stakeholder theory from business and management, particularly Freeman’s foundational research, alongside Meadows’ concept of leverage points for systemic change, Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner’s systems convening as a leadership practice, Wheatley’s work on leadership in complex systems, and the UCL Co-Production Collective model for inclusive stakeholder engagement.
The framing is further informed by 33 facilitated conversations conducted in summer 2024 with a diverse cross-section of the UK research ecosystem, including technicians, research managers, professional services staff, and others in research-enabling roles. These in-depth discussions explored power, leadership, recognition, and cultural dynamics in collaborative environments and illustrate emergent patterns that informed the theoretical framing and practical examples presented in this paper.
What is the academic impact?
Effective stakeholder engagement for co-production requires a systematic approach underpinned by the often-invisible infrastructure of research enablers. Achieving this frequently requires a culture shift within the institutions in which we operate. Universities therefore need to design and sustain systems that actively facilitate this culture shift. This paper gives evidence, a transferable framework, and applied examples to equip research enablers to participate fully in this structure by providing a framework and embedding co-production principles in theory and practice.
What is the wider impact?
Behind every successful collaboration is an invisible architecture: research enablers who build trust, connect systems, and create the cultural conditions for co-production. This research makes that architecture visible and actionable, driving a culture shift as institutions design and sustain the infrastructure needed to embed collaboration and co-production at scale.
Helen Elizabeth Bryant, Alys Kay· Journal of Research Manageme...· 0 citations
Inaccessibility to peer-reviewed literature has long constrained Indian scholarship, especially given the rising cost of access, sectoral consortia, multiple points of procurement, and libraries’ inability to keep pace with these changes due to limited budgets. The One Nation One Subscription (ONOS) scheme, which was approved by the Union Cabinet in November 2024, stands as the Government of India’s answer to these structural weaknesses, with a cost amounting to INR 6,000 crore over 3 years and an annual amount of INR 150 crore for Article Processing Charge (APC) support from January 1, 2025. This study aims to step out of the descriptive narratives of ONOS and theorise ONOS as a managed national knowledge infrastructure. This study proposes a five-layered conceptual framework to connect policy inputs and outputs vis-à-vis access to public goods, governance and market mediation, institutional mediation, access outcomes, and system-level effects, with explicit feedback loops as a function of public goods, resource-based and diffusion of innovations theories, and the political economy of scholarly publishing. Data analysis was conducted through a qualitative and interpretive documentary approach by focusing on official policy instruments, government communications, and peer-reviewed literature obtained from Scopus during the period 2010-2025. This analysis suggests that there is substantial potential in ONOS for access equity, bargaining power, and national research capacity, while there are unanswered tensions with regard to disciplinary coverage, integration with open access, concentration of publishers, financial sustainability, institutional autonomy, and the digital divide. The framework shows that the legitimacy of a national license hinges on governance quality and is shaped by the role of Library and Information Science (LIS) professionals. Directions for policy refinement and an empirical research agenda based on the framework are also provided in this study.
Dubakula Durga Prasad, Rajesh Rangappa Aldarthi· Journal of Information and K...· 0 citations