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Open access Jul 2026

GovTech in Europe between public- and privateness—A Delphi-based research agenda

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.

Luca T. Bauer, Nitesh Bharosa, Björn Niehaves · 0 citations

Safeguarding essential access

As markets and societies become increasingly reliant on digital platform services and infrastructures, businesses and individuals depend ever more heavily on these platforms for access to opportunities. This concentration of control grants platform operators significant power to regulate access. This dissertation, situated within the ERC-funded ‘Modern Bigness’ project, examines how the law can safeguard access to essential digital platforms, considering both an EU competition law approach, namely the essential facilities doctrine, and a regulatory approach grounded in the concept of public services. It thereby addresses the following research question: Which of the two approaches – the essential facilities doctrine or the concept of public services – can better safeguard access to essential digital platforms in light of access justice? This power to regulate access raises the risk of arbitrary exclusion by big tech companies, a risk that speaks to the foundational importance of access to the European project. Access justice, as developed by Hans-W. Micklitz and adopted as the dissertation's normative framework, recognises this importance. It is against this backdrop that the essential facilities doctrine and the concept of public services are tabled as potential avenues for tackling the exclusionary effects of big tech power. The doctrinal analysis finds that the essential facilities doctrine, whilst narrowed by recent case law confining the Bronner test to facilities developed exclusively for a dominant undertaking's own use, has been accompanied by a growing body of access restrictions and equality of opportunity jurisprudence operating beyond Bronner. The concept of public services, operating through services of general (economic) interest, an increasing constitutionalisation, and universal service obligations, is found capable of extension to digital platforms, though no digital platform provider has yet been so designated. Evaluated against three principles inferred from access justice, namely that access must be materialised and meaningful, fair and non-discriminatory, and ensured for the vulnerable, competition law (ie the essential facilities doctrine) is found to be increasingly attuned to the realities of contemporary digital markets, though refinements to Bronner's condition of indispensability are proposed (for instance, it is suggested that indispensability might be assessed through a broader public interest lens). The concept of public services, by contrast, remains under-utilised in this domain, despite being well equipped to counter the negative effects of big tech power, with a persistent gap identified between political commitment to (digital) solidarity and inclusion and legislative reality. The dissertation concludes that both approaches safeguard access in line with access justice and are best understood as complementary, with the concept of public services holding considerable, as yet unrealised, potential to address the challenges posed by the digital platform economy.

L. Lalíková · 0 citations
Review Jul 2026

Openness and Inequity in Scientific Research

This special issue examines the promises and limitations of Open Science (OS) and the conditions that produce inequity, injustice, and exclusion in research. Going well beyond the free sharing of publications typically referred to as Open Access, OS aspires to take advantage of new communication technologies to enhance access to and use of all the components of research, ranging from data to models, software, techniques, instruments, protocols and review procedures (Boulton and Royal Society 2012). OS advocates argue that the competitive and proprietary regimes and metrics under which research is currently conducted damage the reliability, quality, and social relevance of science. The main reason is that these regimes and metrics erode opportunities for critical scrutiny and collaboration which are the hallmarks of scientific work. They also disincentivise the exchange of insights and methods within and across disciplines (Radder 2010) leading to an inward-looking academic culture more interested in competing for the next high-impact publication than in developing reliable long-term solutions to societal and environmental challenges (Edwards and Roy 2017).

Sabina Leonelli, Paola Castaño, R. Alcalay · 0 citations
Open access Jul 2026

CSR 4.0: Participatory Communication in the Digital Age

This research analyzes the fundamental transformation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies in the context of Industry 4.0 and the implementation of the European regulatory framework (CSRD/ESRS). The study explores the transition from traditional, unilateral communication paradigms— categorized as sensegiving—toward collaborative, networked models defined as CSR 4.0. In this new paradigm, businesses and communities engage in participatory sensemaking to co-construct social value and systemic resilience. Utilizing a qualitative methodology based on directed content analysis, the research examines how the digitalization of the Triple Bottom Line model addresses structural gaps such as Romania’s digital paradox. The analysis demonstrates that within the current regulatory landscape, Corporate Digital Responsibility (CDR) has evolved from a voluntary ethical framework into a critical prerequisite for organizational legitimacy. Consequently, non-financial reporting is repositioned as a strategic instrument for building trust and ensuring long-term institutional viability in a hyper-connected era.

M. Ursu · 0 citations
Open access Aug 2026

Strengthening international evidence-informed policy making: lessons from the Global South.

Introduction Evidence-informed policy making (EIP) has generated substantial scholarship, but its contribution to the practicalities of policy making in international organisations is limited by the focus on a discreet and generally local level of governance. Furthermore, there is an acute bias in existing EIP literature, with the majority of studies derived from Global North countries. Methods To partially redress this geographic imbalance, the study produces four national case studies drawn from Sub-Saharan Africa, each reflecting on current, live policy processes within those national contexts, which are comparatively summarised within this article. Analytic plan Case studies are examined through an analytical framework based on Langer et al (2020) to identify replicable practices that may inform decision-making across multiple scales of governance, operating under the assumption that policy processes are transboundary and that lessons from national contexts can be translated to the international level. Results Findings emphasise integrating diverse stakeholders through inclusive approaches that enable meaningful participation of underrepresented knowledge. The centrality of political economy in shaping evidence use is highlighted, the need for structured evidence-demand and communication practices, and the value of clear guidelines around evidence categories to strengthen how diverse evidence types are interpreted across governance levels. Conclusion This article extends EIP's analytical reach beyond local and Global North contexts, offering a framework applicable to international policy-making institutions. Findings carry implications for designing inclusive and structured EIP mechanisms at national and international levels, and point to the need for future research that continues to diversify the geographic and institutional scope of EIP scholarship.

J. Espey, Zhengli Huang, Giada Casarin et al. · 0 citations
Open access Jul 2026

The EU's Digital Services Act: Not Walking the Talk

Is the European Union's (EU's) Digital Services Act (DSA) a bold reform of platform governance that needs to be scaled back? The EU's reputation for prioritising citizens' rights over companies' and market freedoms seems to suggest so. Recent criticism of EU digital policy from the United States is further fuelling this perception. However, an in‐depth study of the political debates preceding the DSA now suggests otherwise. It reveals that many options that would have enabled much more effective regulation of internet platforms, with a focus on protecting citizens and democracy, were discarded. When faced with choices involving the regulation of the digital economy, the EU has consistently opted for market freedom over more far‐reaching regulation in areas such as user tracking and profiling, platform exemption from publisher liability and tackling illegal and harmful content online. A realistic perception of the DSA suggests that this Act is merely the first step towards safeguarding democracy in the digital age and that further action is essential.

Gerda Falkner · 1 citation