Call for Track Proposals

dg.o 2027: 28th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research

Conference Theme

AI Transformation and Government Innovation:

Advancing Theoretical Foundations and Empirical Evidence

Seoul National University of Science and Technology (SeoulTech), Seoul, Republic of Korea

June 28 – July 1, 2027

https://dgsociety.org/dgo-2027/ (forthcoming)

The Digital Government Society (DGS) announces the 28th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (dg.o 2027), under the theme “AI Transformation and Government Innovation: Advancing Theoretical Foundations and Empirical Evidence.” The dg.o 2027 will be hosted by Seoul National University of Science and Technology (SeoulTech) in Seoul, Republic of Korea, from June 28 to July 1, 2027. The dg.o conference series is an established forum for the presentation, discussion, and demonstration of interdisciplinary research on digital government, civic engagement, artificial intelligence, technology innovation, and related applications and practices. Each year, the conference brings together scholars and practitioners whose work advances both theory and practice and addresses timely and consequential issues in digital government.

THEME & TOPICS

The dg.o 2027 theme articulates the movement now under way in governments worldwide — from digital transformation (DX) to AI transformation (AX). Building on decades of digital government innovation, public organizations are no longer piloting artificial intelligence at the edges of their operations; they are beginning to embed it in core administrative processes including decision support, service delivery, regulation, inspection, and policy analysis. This is not simply a technological upgrade. It changes how public authority is exercised, how administrative discretion and responsibility are distributed between human officials and AI, and how citizens interact with the state.

At the same time, AI transformation represents one important dimension of the broader digital government landscape. While AI transformation is a central focus of dg.o 2027, the conference welcomes research across the full breadth of the digital government domain — including work on interoperability, digital inclusion, digital public infrastructure and services, cybersecurity, and organizational transformation that does not directly involve AI.

Advancing theoretical foundations. Much of what the field knows about digital government was built for an era of digitization, platform-based service delivery, and data sharing. AI in the public sector raises questions those frameworks were not designed to answer: what accountability means when a decision is produced by an AI whose reasoning is not fully legible; what administrative discretion becomes when it is shared with or mediated by AI; what legitimacy rests on when the outputs of the state are AI-generated. The dg.o 2027 invites scholarly research that extends, adapts, or productively challenges existing theory, and research that builds new conceptual apparatus for AI-era government.

Advancing empirical evidence. Claims about artificial intelligence in government have expanded more rapidly than the evidence supporting them, creating an urgent need for stronger empirical research. We particularly welcome rigorous empirical contributions — including case studies, comparative research, field and survey experiments, administrative data analysis, computational and text-analytic methods, ethnographic work, and mixed-methods research — that document what is actually happening as AI is adopted in public organizations and examine its effects on efficiency, equity, service quality, the public workforce, and public trust. Negative results and well-documented failures are as valuable to this community as success stories.

Public values remain the guide and the purpose. As AI becomes increasingly embedded in government, technological transformation must ultimately be evaluated against the public values that government is expected to uphold. Effectiveness, equity, transparency, accountability, efficiency, responsiveness and fairness do not become less important as systems become more capable; they become harder to secure and more consequential when they fail. Understanding how public values are created, embedded, displaced, or eroded by AI is therefore central to this conference.

Four key threads

• Algorithmic accountability — transparency, auditability, contestability, and redress when public decisions are shaped by algorithmic systems; oversight institutions, procurement, and standards.
• Human–AI collaboration — how public servants, professionals, and AI systems divide work, build or lose trust, and reshape administrative capacity, skills, and discretion.
• Citizen engagement — AI-mediated participation and service co-production; accessibility, digital inclusion, and equity; and the changing relationship between citizens and the state.
• Democratic legitimacy — institutional and constitutional questions raised by AI in government: including authority, oversight, representation, information integrity, and public trust.

Building on dg.o 2026 in Omaha, which explored collaborative digital transformation for public value creation, dg.o 2027 deepens that dialogue — from collaborative digital transformation to AI transformation. As the conference comes to Asia, we particularly welcome tracks that bring comparative, international, and regional perspectives to these questions.

The dg.o 2027 theme connects with established tracks featured at past dg.o conferences, such as:

• Human-AI Collaboration in Public Service
• Algorithmic bureaucracy
• Application of Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, and Computational Methods for Data-driven governance
• Artificial Intelligence in the Public Sector
• Beyond Bureaucracy & e-Anarchy: Self-Governance of the Public Sphere and Innovative Use of Technology by Civil Society
• Collaborative intelligence: humans, crowds, and machines
• Comparative AI Policy and Governance
• Computational methods for data-driven governance
• Cybersecurity concerns and solutions in the age of Internet of beings
• Data-driven services in government for evidence-based policy and Public Value
• Digital Democracy & AI
• Digital Government and Sustainable Development Goals
• Digital Government Cybersecurity Management: Paradoxical Tensions and Responsible Innovation
• Digital Government Ecosystem Cases: Collaboration for enhancing transformative innovations and overcoming challenges
• Digital Government for Stronger Society
• Digital Government Platform and Core Public Values
• Digital Government Practitioner Track
• Digital Government: Bachelor and Master Student Track
• Digital Government, solidarity and social cohesion
• Digital Transformation in governments
• Digital Transformation in Subnational Governments
• Exploring the impact of open government initiatives: transparency, participation, and governance transformation
• Generative Artificial Intelligence in Government
• Government Cyberinfrastructure and Platforms for Discovery and Innovation
• GovTech and Digital Autonomy
• Citizen Engagement Through Digital Government
• Information processing and governance in the digital era
• Legal Informatics — Foundations and Applications
• Organizational Factors, Adoption Issues and Value Creation of Digital Government
• Re-imagining flexible work in the public service: the shift to remote and hybrid offices
• Smart Cities for Social Cohesion
• Smart cities: people-centric innovations in the era of citiverse
• Social Media and Government — Democratic challenges, regulation, uses of platforms, and actors’ behavior
• Sustainable and Ethical Public Service Co-Creation
• Sustainable and Open Data Ecosystems for inclusive and innovative Digital Government

We invite past track chairs to update and resubmit their tracks. We also invite proposals for new tracks addressing existing and emerging research challenges related to the dg.o 2027 theme of AI transformation and government innovation.

Tracks should be related to digital government, but do not need to be limited to the conference theme. Track proposals will be evaluated based on the expertise and reputation of the track chairs in the proposed field, the track’s past performance where applicable, the novelty and coherence of the proposed topics, and their relevance to digital government research and practice. We particularly welcome new tracks that address emerging topics and perspectives not previously represented at dg.o conferences.

Please note that all conference sessions, including all tracks, are conducted in English.

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS AND FORMATS

Track proposals should be submitted by email to the Conference Chairs and Program Chairs:

Conference Chairs:

WookJoon Sung: wjsung@seoultech.ac.kr

Yu-Che Chen: ychen@unomaha.edu

Tomasz Janowski: Tomasz.janowski@pg.edu.pl

Program Chairs:

Taehee Kim: tkim77@seoultech.ac.kr

Jooho Lee: jooholee@unomaha.edu

Please submit your track proposal using the attached proposal template.

TRACK PROPOSAL TIMELINE

All proposal and paper submission deadlines for dg.o 2027 close at 23:59 AoE (Anywhere on Earth, UTC−12) on the dates indicated. A submission is considered on time as long as it is still the specified dates anywhere in the world.

For planning purposes, the preliminary conference timeline is as follows. These dates are subject to confirmation by the DGS Board; the final timeline will be published with the first call for papers.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF TRACK CHAIRS

Track chairs are expected to fulfill the following responsibilities:

• Attend the monthly online organization meetings
• Promote the track continuously during the Call for Papers, seeking a good number of quality submissions
• Monitor the submitted track papers and oversee the review of the submitted papers
• Propose to accept/reject papers for the track
• Communicate with the Program Chairs and Program Committee Members
• Support Program Chairs on the session plan
• Chair the track sessions
• Select and nominate papers from the track for the best paper award
• Support the identification of good papers to be invited to special issues in partner journals
• Register and attend the conference.

POST-CONFERENCE PUBLICATION OPPORTUNITIES

dg.o 2027 may explore opportunities for high-quality conference papers to be considered for special issues or other publication opportunities in relevant academic journals. Any such opportunities will be subject to the policies and editorial approval of the respective journals. Further information will be provided as arrangements are confirmed.

We look forward to receiving your proposals.

Conference Chairs

WookJoon Sung, Seoul National University of Science & Technology, South Korea

Yu-Che Chen, University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA

Tomasz Janowski, Gdańsk University of Technology, Poland and University for Continuing Education Krems, Austria

Conference Program (PC) Chairs

Taehee Kim, Seoul National University of Science & Technology, South Korea

Jooho Lee, University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA

[Third Program Chair — from the dg.o 2028 host institution, to be confirmed]