PhD position in Political Science with a focus on E-Governance and Digital Public Services

PhD position in Political Science with a focus on E-Governance and Digital Public Services

Application deadline: 1-15 February 2021 (see details here)
Duration (nominal study period): March/ April 2021 – February/ March 2025 (48 months)
Funding: Monthly salary of 1,060€ (net) provided by the H2020 ERA Chair in E-Governance and
Digital Public Services (ECePS)
The general aim of this PhD dissertation project is to examine the political, social and/or economic impact of e-governance and digital public services (e-taxation, e-voting, cross-border governance, etc.). Within this framework, applicants should define and describe a more specific focus which has to be broadly related to the objectives and activities of the ERA Chair in E-Governance and Digital Public Services, a 5-year project supported by the European Commission (see: https://eceps.ut.ee). The PhD fellow is expected to engage in research, teaching and dissemination activities in the realm of e-governance and digital public services in close cooperation with institutions both within Estonia and internationally.

Interested candidates are invited to prepare a research proposal outlining the specific research project they would pursue under the given general topic. Admission requirements, including guidelines for the research proposal, can be found here.

Supervisors: Prof Robert Krimmer, ERA Chair Professor in E-Governance and Digital Public Services, and Dr Mihkel Solvak, Senior Researcher in Technology Studies.

The ERA Chair is led by Prof Robert Krimmer. His research is focused on digital transformation, crossborder e-services, electronic participation and democracy, as well as e-voting, and all issues further developing a digital society. He is Associate Editor of the international scientific journal Government Information Quarterly (GIQ), where he is in charge of participation issues. In 2019, he was nominated among the top 16 academics within the list of 100 most influential people in digital government by Apolitical.

The ERA Chair is embedded in the Center for IT Impact Studies (CITIS), based at the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu. CITIS is dedicated to understanding and improving the way public e-services impact the daily functioning of the state. CITIS focuses on (1) utilizing the autogenerated big data from various Estonian public e-services to estimate the impact those services have economically, politically and socially; (2) developing new, science-based e-services through the cross-usage of various databases; (3) understanding the impact these services have on digital ecosystems; and on various teaching activities to disseminate these analytical skills.

Please contact PhD programme Coordinator Maili Vilson, maili.vilson@ut.ee for an approval of your application ahead of the application deadline. Please note that the prospective supervisor(s) is not in a position to provide extensive comments or help develop project descriptions at the application stage, given the large number of applicants