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Abstract

Educational programmes in eGovernment or digital government attract a diverse set of students who are interested in the public sector and technological trends. These programmes aim to train a new generation of digital government professionals. However, we know relatively little about how such programmes succeed in training translators who are able to bridge the world of the public sector and that of digitalization. In this paper we systematically study the characteristics and motivations programme applicants to the Erasmus Mundus MSc in Public Sector Innovation and eGovernance, as well as the programme outcomes in terms of the substantive interests of students as reflected in MSc theses and post-study career choices. We find that the number of applicants from an IT or tech background remains rather low, and that the applicants almost exclusively come from outside of Europe. Applicants show a good grasp of the relevance and urgency of digital transformation to develop their countries, yet application letters suggest a weaker tech-inspired motivation to study digital public governance. Finally, we find that consulting firms with a specialisation in public sector projects and digital governance hold significant appeal to graduates.

Keywords

teaching public administration motivation curriculum development career choice

Key Points for Practitioners

The paper introduces a dedicated international master's programme that trains interdisciplinary experts to bridge public administration and digital technology.

The programme predominantly attracts applicants with a public administration/policy or social science profile, while the number of applicants with an information science or IT background remains relatively limited.

In their motivation letters, applicants show a good grasp of the relevance and urgency of digital transformation to develop their countries, but considerably less attention to information systems development and management.

Only a small number of graduates work for the public sector, whereas consulting firms with a specialisation in public sector projects and digital governance hold significant appeal for graduates.

Public sectors may need to further develop the dedicated career track for the e-government profession to better signal the need and dynamic career prospects for such students.

Introduction

Training a future generation of public sector employees and decision-makers who understand the challenges of digitalisation for the public sector means bridging the worlds of traditional public administration education and IT and technology education. Rather than training students to become either public officials or IT professionals, there is a need for training them to become translators who understand and can talk to both communities.

Many public administration MA and MSc programmes have until recently concentrated on the typical topics in public sector management and public administration (e.g., human resources, change management, public law, or public administration), but rarely focus on digitalisation in the public sector by integrating expertise in ICT and information systems sciences (see, e.g., Manoharan & McQuiston 2016; McQuiston & Manoharan 2021, for an analysis of Asian programmes). At the same time, engineering or applied sciences faculties teach their students IT and data knowledge and skills but do so with a predominant focus on private sector environments. Halsbenning et al. (2021) recognised that most curricula are strongly domain-dependent and only slowly adapting to the required competencies in the public sector. The objective of this paper is to analyse the extent to which a specific digital government MA programme has succeeded in bridging the gap between these two worlds. By doing this, it wants to provide input to other initiatives and programmes on the factors that are needed to attract the right students, and to gauge demand for topical specialisation.

Public Administration MA and MSc degrees have in recent years introduced changes to deal with the challenges of digitalisation for the public sector, and dedicated teaching programmes have been set up. One such programme is the Erasmus Mundus MSc in Public Sector Innovation and eGovernance (PIONEER), a joint programme that was started in 2016 by KU Leuven (Belgium), the University of Münster (Germany), and Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia). Funded by the European Commission, it aims to train ‘translators’ who speak two ‘languages’ and who can thus explain government to the IT and GovTech crowd, and who can explain digital to the public sector, to support the public sector to adjust to the digital era. This paper seeks to study to what extent the programme is bridging the gap between these two worlds, by looking at the characteristics of applicants to the programme (educational background and motivation – what have they studied before and what motivates them to apply) and the programme outcomes in terms of MSc thesis topic choice (do they pick a topic that touches the two worlds, or one that is firmly embedded in one of them) and post-study employment (what roles do they take up and in what sector). In doing so, the paper wants to provide input to other educators in the field who are building or adapting digital government programmes on how they can align their programme with the motivations of applicants, and the careers they aspire.

The European Commission's Digital Europe programme (2021–2027) in the context of the 2030 Digital Compass policy expressed the need to support the design and delivery of long-term training and master's programmes for students, IT professionals, and the (public sector) workforce to ensure that the public sector can deploy and access state-of-the-art technologies. A key concern in discourses on public sector employment in the digital age is that there is a gap between those who speak the digital language and those who speak the language of the public sector (National Audit Office, 2023), or ‘translators’. Several competence frameworks for digital government professions have explicitly included such a translation function. The UK Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework has included ‘Communicating between the technical and non-technical’ as part of its core skillset, and Italy's Social Security (INPS) Deep Skills project identified ‘Knowledge networking’ as a key skill (OECD, 2024). In the context of the ISA² Action of the European Commission Interoperability Academy, a specific skills and competences framework for enhancing interoperability of public services was developed to be customised for the Public Sector (Kyriakopoulou et al., 2021). Digitalisation in the public sector adds a new layer of essential skills that are different from those that used to be at the core of the Public Administration curriculum. For the public sector workforce, this means having digital competences at the strategic (to sense and integrate the digital opportunities), operational (to size, and implement digital processes), and technical (data, IT) level. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) developed a ‘Framework for Digital Talent and Skills in the Public Sector’, and such skills are increasingly being integrated into practices and policies to attract, retain, and develop the public sector workforce (OECD, 2020).

In this paper, we first review the rise of digital public governance programmes, as well as the literature on the profile and motivations of students wanting to pursue studies in digital public governance. We then introduce the PIONEER MSc as a case. Subsequently, we systematically study motivation letters (N = 1028) with topic modelling; data on topics students choose to focus on in MSc theses (N = 60); and data on post-study employment (N = 94) to establish the extent to which the programme manages to create a group of professionals who can act as translators. We end with a discussion on the educational challenges of creating a digital public service profession.

Background: The Rise of Digital Public Governance Programmes

The increase in digital public governance programmes could be analysed as part of efforts, mainly by governments, to improve public policy and administration by training public servants in public governance, management, strategy, organisation, and leadership skills (Greve & Pedersen, 2017). Specifically, as identified by Manoharan & McQuiston (2016), the emphasis on information technology (IT) skills in Masters Public Administration (MPA) and Masters of Public Policy (MPP) responded to the necessity to implement successful e-government applications and train public servants to become competent at applying technological innovation (Ogonek et al. 2016; Zuiderwijk et al., 2021). Demand for public servants who excel in managerial and ICT competencies is high. There have been initiatives to systematically map the digital competences that need to be taught in public service education (https://www.teachingpublicservice.digital).

Despite its relevance, many gaps have been identified between the skills current civil servants have and the desire to maximise public value through digital transformation (Zuiderwijk et al., 2021), as well as between the skills they need and those that are offered in current training and education (Koelmann et al., 2023; ÓNeill, 2022). This perceived skills gap in public administration pedagogy is not new, as the field is often criticized due to its reduced integration of the skills a government employee needs and those taught in academic institutions (Manoharan & McQuiston, 2016). Such gap persisted when referring to pedagogy of information technology, as identified in the case of the United States’ MPA and MPP programmes where most of them were characterized as lacking uniformity when referring to integrating IT knowledge and skills in public sector future employees (Manoharan & McQuiston, 2016). This gap widens when it comes to recent developments (Hu, 2021), in particular AI (Al-Mushayt, 2019; Kamukapa et al., 2024; Manoharan & McQuiston, 2016; Sun & Medaglia, 2019), and data science (Ho et al., 2024).

Manoharan & McQuiston (2016) reviewed 211 MPA and MPP programmes and IT courses offered in the United States, pointing out that 129 of masteŕs programmes offer IT courses. From these courses, 39 were core IT courses and 90 elective IT courses. 54% of the IT courses included topics among e-government component, and other topics such as privacy and infrastructure concerns. Students also learn about cybersecurity (35%), GIS (33%), digital divide (33%). Nevertheless, topics such as big data or cloud computing are not so common, reaching scores of 16% and 4%, respectively. This reveals a reduced focus on tools that are relatively new in public administration Furthermore, the IT components varied in frequency among the master programmes because of the lack of a uniform standard (Manoharan & McQuiston, 2016). Sarantis et al. (2022) identified 57 different e-government programmes on the European and American continent. Undergraduate programmes were mainly found in countries with high levels of e-government maturity, whereas countries with a lower level of maturity mainly offered postgraduate programmes (Sarantis et al. 2022). The curricula of such programmes focused on public administration, with some exploration of the use of ICT, yet with relatively limited knowledge sharing on digital governance topics (Sarantis et al. 2022). Also in Asia-based programmes, a focus on IT and digital governance remains limited in traditional Public Administration training (McQuiston & Manoharan 2021).

This pedagogical gap has also been identified in the case of interdisciplinary programmes like those in data science which encounter similar hindrances such as curriculum fragmentation and heterogeneous student profiles. There is no consensus regarding the specific competences and skills demanded by the public sector and how they are aligned to the curriculum components.

This reasoning initially guided the creation of Executive Educational Programmes that differ from the traditional master's in public administration (MPA) in their curriculum, methodology, and schedule flexibility (Greve & Pedersen, 2017). This executive training tradition also includes several programmes for senior government officers interested in learning about information technology topics (Sarantis et al. 2022). Recent years have seen the emergence of several executive and traditional programmes that aspire to combine Public Administration and ICT or technology. Examples include a Digital Technologies and Policy MPA at UCL, an MA in E-Government in Koblenz, an MA in Open eGovernment in Stockholm, an MA in Digital Administration in Tartu, an MPA in eGovernment in Sri Lanka, an interorganisational MA in Artificial Intelligence for Public Services, or an MA in Digital Transformation in the Public Sector and Administration at SciencesPo to name just a few, alongside various data science and policy programmes.

A rise of non-executive programmes in digital public governance begs the question: why would a student choose such a programme? A desire to pursue a career in the public sector would be a likely explanation. The Public Administration literature uses the concept of public sector motivation to describe beliefs, values, and attitudes beyond self-interest that motivate individuals to perform according to public sector values (Esteve & Schuster 2019). In particular, the transformative potential of digitalisation for society, and the opportunity to make a difference in society may be an important factor in attracting students (see also Henstra & McGowan (2016) for an analysis of motivations to pursue Public Administration using motivation letters).

At the same time, studying digital public governance can also be explained by extrinsic motives (Ryan & Deci, 2000) related to job prospects or salary. The huge demand for digital public governance profiles in the public sector may be a reason to specialise in this topic, rather than attending a more traditional Public Administration programme. Thus, public servants’ motivation to learn about implementing technology in the public sector is linked to its positive impact on enhancing their career adaptability. According to Kumi et al. (2024), technology readiness (propensity to adopt and utilise technology in the workplace) boosts the effe’tiveness of public servants’ career paths, leading to professional growth and development. In addition, the GovTech industry and the public sector consulting industry have grown exponentially, luring many PA graduates to rewarding careers.

Finally, intrinsic motivations can play a significant role (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Public sector informatisation projects can be rather challenging and thus rewarding, and may thus attract ICT profiles to study digital public governance who would traditionally not have been attracted to Public Administration programmes.

Case – the PIONEER Programme as a Pioneering Digital Public Governance Programme

In this paper, we study to what extent the PIONEER Public Sector Innovation and E-governance MSc manages to bridge Public Administration and ICT studies and has been able to train translators to bridge the worlds of the public sector and digitalisation. It does so by looking at the characteristics (including motivations) of incoming students and at programme outcomes in terms of thesis topics and careers. Before starting the analysis, we first introduce the programme.

PIONEER, as a joint master's programme, was launched as an answer to traditional ways of teaching in which public administration departments were training future civil servants and policymakers, and information science departments were training developers. Several of the authors were involved in the design of the programme. Based on the understanding that a digital society and digital government needs people who can speak both languages, that of social sciences and that of technology, to support the digital transformation of the public sector and understand the wider societal consequences of technological change, the interdisciplinary curriculum was designed to give an answer to the need of inter/transdisciplinary expertise to fully benefit from the potential of ICT and technological innovations in the public sector. In a context where digital transformation and ICT are becoming increasingly important for the modernisation and innovation of the public sector, the sector itself needs experts (1) who can translate technological expertise into efficiency, effectiveness, performance, and user needs, and (2) who can take into account the organisational, cultural, social and structural peculiarities of the public sector when implementing technologies. Following up on this, we designed the PIONEER curriculum in this manner (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

PIONEER Curriculum.

The MSc in Public Sector Innovation and E-governance (PIONEER) is a broad transdisciplinary joint master's programme established in 2016 consisting of four semesters (i.e., 120 ECTS). Students follow a semester at each of the three partner universities (KU Leuven, University of Münster, and Tallinn University of Technology). Its foci are on public administration, information systems sciences, and eGovernance. Each partner university introduces its academic content aligned with its specific expertise into the programme, contributing towards a fully integrated curriculum. KU Leuven mainly offers public administration, the University of Münster offers ICT and information systems sciences, and Tallinn University of Technology eGovernance. As the programme aims at creating an interdisciplinary learning experience, where students can also learn from each other, PIONEER targets students from both social science and technological disciplines who have already obtained an academic bachelor's degree, e.g., in computer science, information systems, information sciences, engineering, social sciences, political sciences, public administration, criminology, business, or law.

PIONEER received funding from the European Commissiońs Erasmus + programme twice (2016–2021 and 2022–2028) to provide full scholarships to 114 students. Table 1 shows the number of applications that started to grow quite fast after the start of the programme, subsequently dropped in years when no scholarships were available, and recently increased very rapidly to over 300 per year.

Table 1.

Number of Applications to the PIONEER Programme, Scholarships and Graduations.

Cohort	Number of applications	Number of students who started the programme	Number of assigned scholarships	Number of graduates	EU graduates
1(2017–2019)	67	16	15	16	3
2(2018–2020)	85	25	16	23	5 (+ 1 UK)
3(2019–2021)	107	27	14	24	10
4(2020–2022)	45	19	0	14	9
5(2021–2023)	43	17	0	17	8
6(2022–2024)	41	19	0	16	8
7(2023–2025)	327	32	17	na	2*
8(2024–2026)	321	28	16	na	3*

* students instead of graduates, as this cohort has not yet graduated. EU graduates reported separately because they did not qualify for scholarships.

There is a good gender balance in applications, with the number of female applicants always in between 44% and 54%, depending on the cohort. Geographically, applications are less balanced. The number of applicants from Asian countries is increasing and stands at 48,9% of all applications in 2024. This is followed by the African continent with 14%. In contrast, the number of European applicants is low, at just 7,5% in the most recent round of applications. Of course, the chance of winning a scholarship is a reason for this (the programme does not offer scholarships to applicants from European Economic Area (EEA) countries). The number of European applicants has remained stable over the years, whereas non-EEA applications have fluctuated depending on whether scholarships were available. In absolute numbers, applicants from outside the EU mainly came from Pakistan, China, India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Nigeria. Within the EU, German applicants outnumber applicants from other countries.

Method and Data

To comprehensively analyse to what extent the PIONEER master has been able to bridge Public Administration and ICT studies, we look at educational background of applicants (do they have social science and technology backgrounds), motivation (does it reflect intrinsic, extrinsic or public sector motivation), thesis topic choice (are both Public Administration and ICT reflected, ideally in combination), and post-study employment (figure 2). We have analysed four different data sources. Together, these data allow establishing whether there is a bridging effect in the background of applicants and the motivational language they use on their applications, in the topics they choose for their thesis, and the jobs they subsequently take up, or whether these remain predominantly mono-disciplinary.

Figure 2.

Analytical Frame.

The first data source is the disciplinary and demographic background of all applicants to the programme over 8 years. The second data source is a set of all motivation letters written by PIONEER applicants (N = 1028).¹ A typical motivation letter is 1 to 2 pages long and addressed to the programme organisers, in which applicants describe their motivations and experiences to pursue a career in digital public governance. The third data source consists of master theses (N = 60) defended by the students of the three first cohorts who completed the programme. The fourth data source consists of post-study employment data collected from publicly available online sources, predominantly social media platforms such as LinkedIn, as well as through direct inquiries via email. This analysis exclusively considers individuals who have successfully graduated; those who withdrew from the programme for various reasons are not included in the sample.

We employed a mixed-method approach. To analyse the motivation letters of applicants (N = 1028), we used topic modelling, an unsupervised machine learning technique. Machines outperform humans in narrow exercises of inference on large volumes of data (Korteling et al. 2021, p.6) and at finding organisations of vast amounts of documents that are useful to humans (Grimmer & King, 2011). Unsupervised learning also offers more potential for discovery and requires less human labour than supervised approaches (Heiberger & Galvez, 2021). Methodologically, our text-as-data analysis does not assume a true objective function, i.e., an objectively best organisation of the text into latent properties. Instead, the quality of the uncovered organisation depends mostly on how well it answers the research questions (Grimmer et al., 2022, pp. 18–20). Mathematically, the generation of topics is modelled as a generative probabilistic process (Blei, Ng & Jordan, 2003), which means that there are underlying, latent organisations of text collections by which the ultimate text, its words, are generated. The topic model maps the text of motivation letters to an implicit topic organisation.

Building on the pipeline from Roberts et al. (2019), we processed 1028 motivation letters by first converting PDFs to text using Tesseract. We then employed the Quanteda package to create a document-feature matrix (DFM), after removing numbers, punctuation, symbols, and stopwords, and applying stemming. Features appearing in over 70% of documents were removed.

An initial search identified 126 topics as a stable starting point (Mimno & Lee, 2014). We then conducted a broader search from 30 to 130 topics, with metrics such as held-out likelihood and semantic coherence indicating that 60 or 100 topics were locally optimal (Appendices A and B). Models for both 60 and 100 topics were equally well-modelled. Hence, we selected the 60-topic model for its superior human interpretability. (cf. appendix B, model 3 for 60 topics) Its topics were labelled manually and alternatively by ChatGPT. These labels were merged and then manually categorized by the researchers building on the classic distinction between personal and public service motivation, as described by Perry (1996).

A systematic review of 60 theses was conducted. By coding the titles and abstracts by topics, three thematic clusters were identified: public administration and governance, information systems, and e-Governance and society. This clustering helped to distinguish patterns within topic selection, providing insight into the influence of the seminars and the three universities’ specialisations on students’ research choices and research methods.

Post-study careers were analysed through a combination of a cohort study, which aggregates data on the locations of each graduating cohort one year post graduation, and a panel study, which collects aggregated data on the current statuses of all PIONEER alumni as of October 2024. This dual approach allows for comparative analysis between cohorts and facilitates the examination of trends over time. Data have been gathered for the first five PIONEER cohorts, encompassing graduation years from 2019 to 2023 (N = 94). In instances where a graduate has held multiple positions concurrently, we considered the role in which they were engaged as a full-time employee or the position held for an extended duration.

In terms of the sectoral profile of organisations employing PIONEER alumni, we applied the following typology: 1) public sector organisations (including central government entities such as ministries and development agencies, as well as local public authorities); 2) international organisations (such as the United Nations, OECD, and European Union); 3) research and development organisations (notably universities and research institutes); 4) private sector organisations (comprising consultancy firms, technology companies, financial institutions, and self-employed individuals, among others); and 5) non-governmental organisations (NGOs) (including for instance think tanks and civic organisations). The analysis of job positions is informed by the International Labour Organization's (ILO) classification of occupations from 2012.²

The approach comes with a number of limitations. By using motivation letters, it looks at how applicants present themselves, which can also be interpreted as strategic behaviour during the application. In addition, the PIONEER MSc granted scholarships to non-EEA candidates as of 2017–2019 and 2023–2024 and none to EEA candidates within the period of 2017–2024, which may (geographically) skew the application patterns. In addition, it is possible that the general state of digital government in the applicantś country may influence the motivation as expressed in motivation letters. EEA vs. non-EEA status may also have had an impact on the post-study employment data, as there may have been some geographical restrictions on graduateś career choices.

Analysis & Findings

What are the Characteristics of Incoming Students?

To assess to what extent the PIONEER programme bridges Public Administration and ICT studies, we first look at the background of incoming students, and what motivates them to apply. When looking at the background of applicants, several observations stand out. Table 2 shows the distribution of prior degrees. Two thirds of applicants have a degree in the broad social sciences, in particular political science, business administration and public administration. Applicants with a study background in computer science or IT make up just 8,4% of all applicants. The number of applicants with an information science background is very low at just 2,3%.

Table 2.

Study Background of Applicants.

Study background	%
Political science/International relations/EU studies	24,2%
Business management/administration	16,3%
Public administration/management	10,6%
Other social sciences	8,9%
Computer science/ICT/IT/software	8,4%
Engineering, technology, mathematics, physics	7,9%
Economics, finance	7,5%
Humanities	6,3%
Law	5,5%
Information science/information systems	2,3%
Other	2,1%

Secondly, we look at applicantś motivation to apply to the programme, and more in particular whether such motivations typically address elements that are relevant or both Public Administration and ICT. The language in the motivation letters straightforwardly reflects the globally most important concerns in the current public sector, such as corruption, institutions, accountability, transparency, and citizenship (Figure 3).

Figure 3.

General Impression of the Language in the Motivation Letters. Note: Word Stemming Used.

Within the overall text of the motivation letters (N = 1028), 60 topics were identified (see Appendix E). The prevalence of the topics roughly ranges from 1% to 4% of the documents. The most prominent topic concerned the applicants’ personal motivation to gain professional skills and make academic contributions (roughly 4% of all documents featured topic 6). The second most prominent topic referred to the Erasmus Mundus Academic Programmes (topic 39, ∼4% of documents), followed by the interest in service efficiency and delivery (topic 38, ∼3% of documents).

The applicants motivated their application with concrete public projects and developments in their home country. 31 topics reflect this public service motivation (see Appendix B), such as urban planning and budget policies in a national context (topic 1), Africa's role in global development (topic 11), or problem solving in Indonesian ICT systems (topic 23). By contrast, personal motivations played a less prominent role (8 topics). For example, applicants were motivated by the pursuit of professional skills and academic contributions (topic 6), of e-Governance and a scientific approach (topic 14), committing to academia and community values (topic 17), or academic programmes and career development in Belgium (topic 26).

Applicants mentioned academic experiences (13 topics) that they had or would hope to have, including sociological and cultural perspectives (topic 21), research methodology (topic 22), and Erasmus Mundus Academic Programmes (topic 39). Students also referred to professional experiences (7 topics), such as corporate social responsibility (topic 54), data analysis, security and consulting (topic 7), or project design and technical solutions (topic 13). Only one topic relates to civil society experiences, namely youth leadership and community engagement (topic 2).

The topics in the motivation letters are acutely relevant to the PIONEER curriculum. Predominantly, applicants refer to public administration research topics. They refer to global and increasingly important debates about institutions, such as anti-corruption and institutional transparency (topic 27), land policy and political debates (topic 31), urban planning and budget policies (topic 1), Ukrainian democracy and statehood (topic 37), global development goals (topic 15), human rights and gender equality (topic 42), civil services and economic development (topic 19), European governance and citizen rights (topic 47), legal protection and human rights (topic 52). These topics show that applicants are aware of the important role that public sector organisations and institutions play in human and economic development.

Next to global institutional questions, applicants refer to public policy, such as European Union public policy (topic 33), Latin American social and digital policy (topic 35), and Turkish welfare policies (topic 5), smart city services and policies in Peru (topic 12), digital and educational systems in Pakistan (topic 40), healthcare systems and patient services (topic 43), digital access and social policies in India (topic 44), sustainable policies and climate impact (topic 50). While applicants are interested in the institutions and impact of the public sector, they also display an interest in the inner working of public sector organisations, including tax systems and process efficiency (topic 32), service efficiency and delivery (topic 38), policy implementation and service delivery in Cameroon (topic 51), administrative processes and international relations (topic 8), transformational leadership and strategic innovation (topic 9).

Less commonly, applicants refer to the field of Information Systems, by mentioning ICT systems and business practices in Central Asia (topic 4), data analysis, data security and consulting (topic 7), project design and technical solutions (topic 13), eGovernance (topic 14), digitalization and organisational programmes (topic 20), problem-solving in Indonesian ICT systems (topic 23), ICT projects and policy implementation (topic 45), digital transformation and online access (topic 58), cybersecurity and global AI research (topic 59).

Our analysis of the motivation letters shows that applicants are acutely aware of the relevance of the public sector to the human and economic development of their home countries. On the one hand, the motivation letters pertain to broad institutional questions, public policy formulation and implementation as well as public management. On the other hand, they less frequently refer to information systems development and management. This is probably related to the dominant disciplinary background of applicants as discussed earlier. We conclude that the early semesters of the program's curriculum may need to create more awareness of the role of public sector digital transformation in human and economic development. All in all, the motivation letters mainly evidence a strong and nationally embedded public service motivation, whereas personal motivations play a less prominent role.

Programme Outcomes: Research Topic Choice, Specialisation and Career Paths

To address the second research objective, we now analyse whether programme outcomes provide evidence that the PIONEER programme bridges Public Administration and ICT studies. We first look at topic selection for MSc theses, and then at post-study employment.

First, when writing a MSc thesis, students can choose a supervisor among the three universities in the programme and define a research approach between social, behavioural and design science research. On the one hand, they can focus on contributing to theory development or theory testing by identifying a specific public sector innovation and e-governance topic. On the other hand, they can focus on designing an artefact and testing its effectiveness in solving a predefined public problem.

Due to the disciplinary diversity of universities involved, the specialisation of the Master thesis varies around the public administration and public governance (KU Leuven), IT and Information Systems (University of Münster), and eGovernance and society perspective (Tallinn University of Technology). For example, the topics explored at the KU Leuven included: cross-border services, cybersecurity, eDemocracy, eHealth, eEmergency services, local eGovernment, and social welfare systems. At University of Münster, the focus is on digital applications to promote sustainable transportation, transformation in public health, curb disinformation, train digital competence in the public sector, or promote participation and inclusion in public decision-making.

At TalTech, on the other hand, the theses address questions such as public sector innovation and the societal implications of digital technology on global wealth, inequality or ecological degradation. Thus, the students learn about the creation of public value with technological applications, researching on policies, governance and capacities of transition in the public sector (twin transition, mobility or food systems), and collaborative or experimental governance to achieve this transformation.

The thesis topics cluster in three groups: Public administration and public governance (28,3% of theses): This cluster consists of topics that analyse the rationality behind innovation in the public sector. It focuses on the creation of public values, governance of digital transformation, and digital public governance and its principles (data-driven decision-making, openness, iterative, user-focused, interoperability, and privacy and security).

Information systems (21,7% of theses): This cluster includes topics regarding developing strategies, architectures, platforms, data management models, process management, or strategies to implement interoperable and secure systems.

E-governance and society (50% of theses): The focus is on the system-level perspective of innovation, considering international networks, value chains, and platform ecosystems. Moreover, it encompasses reflections regarding the role of technology in tackling complex societal problems.

Additionally, an in-depth review of the research approach and theorical framework of these theses allowed us to identify the cross-cluster intersections of the master thesis. Specifically, one third of all these were written at the intersection of these clusters. For instance, a thesis on data governance frameworks and interoperability in a public sector exemplifies an intersectional approach between public administration and public governance, and Information Systems. It blends digital public governance principles like interoperability with a technical focus on creating a data-sharing model. In this way, the students prove their holistic understanding of the public administration and information systems intersection in the field of digital transformation. Interestingly, although most of the students are from a social science background, the distribution of thesis topics, as presented above, is diverse and include a comprehensive intersection of frameworks and research approaches learned throughout the program. From our point of view, this let us conclude that (1) the students are aware of the importance of strengthening their expertise both in public administration and information systems, and (2) they can bring this joint focus to a level of analysis and discussion in their final thesis.

During the initial year following graduation, a substantial majority – 71 out of 94 (78.9%) — of graduates found employment within Europe, in comparison to other regions. Eight work in Asia, seven in North America, three in Asia and one in Africa. Notably, only one European graduate out of 53 obtained a position outside of Europe during the first-year post-graduation. At the same time, a significant proportion of non-European PIONEER graduates also tend to remain within the European labour market. Specifically, over half of the graduates from each non-European continent—namely Africa, Asia, North America, and Central/South America—chose to remain in Europe following their studies in the PIONEER program.

Moreover, there is a pronounced trend towards securing employment in private sector organisations after graduation (51 graduates, accounting for 56% of the total, Table 3), particularly within the consultancy field, encompassing business and IT consultancy. Among the 90 organisations that employed PIONEER graduates within one year of graduation, 28—accounting for 31% of the total—are classified as consultancy firms. Noteworthy examples of such firms include Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Accenture, and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Other prevalent categories of private sector employment involve software and technology companies, such as Cybernetica, and FinTech and other financial services entities, such as Wise.

Table 3.

Sectoral Allocation of PIONEER Graduates’ Jobs one Year After Graduation.

Private sector organization	Public sector organization	R&D organization (for PhD studies)	NGO	International organization	R&D organization	N/A
51	14	9	7	5	4	4

In terms of public sector employment, PIONEER alumni find positions across a range of public authorities (e.g., councils, agencies, and offices) that focus on digitalization, development, and innovation promotion, as well as in state-owned enterprises. Interestingly, 10% of graduates pursue doctoral studies at universities, while a small number (four individuals) engage in research or teaching roles at research and development institutions. The international organisations that have employed graduates so far include various UN agencies (e.g., UNICEF, the International Organization for Migration, UNDP), the European Commission's DG DIGIT, and the International Monetary Fund.

The primary occupational category for graduates immediately after graduation Is administration professional, with 58% of PIONEER alumni commencing their careers as management and organisation analysts (e.g., business and management consultants specialising in digitalization processes within the public sector) or as policy and administration professionals (see Table 4). A significant number of graduates have continued their academic pursuits at the doctoral level, and 15 graduates (16% of those employed) have secured managerial positions. These managerial roles span various areas, including: 1) ICT services (e.g., Cloud migration and implementation manager or IT operations manager); 2) business services and administration (e.g., head of business operations); and 3) sales, marketing, and development (e.g., head of online marketing department or head of product and innovation management).

Table 4.

Occupational Classification of PIONEER Graduates’ Jobs one Year After Graduation.

Administration professional	PhD student	Sales, Marketing and Development Manager	ICT Services Manager	Business Services and Administration Manager	University and Higher Education Teacher	Finance Professional	Other, IT-related	Other
53	9	6	5	4	4	4	2	7

An examination of the overall status of PIONEER alumni as of October 2024, particularly focusing on the dynamics of the initial cohorts, reveals no significant differences when compared to the findings from the cohort-based analysis conducted one year after graduation. Notably, a similar proportion - 79% - of all graduates who secured employment by October 2024 did so within Europe. Consistent with the cohort-based findings, all but one European graduate were employed in the European labour market by late 2024. Furthermore, a substantial majority of graduates from each other continent have also remained in Europe.

There have been no notable changes in the sectoral composition of employment among PIONEER alumni as of October 2024. The majority of graduates continue to work within private sector organisations, although the proportion of those employed in consultancy firms has decreased to 24%, down from 31% during the first-year post-graduation. This decline suggests that graduates are advancing in their career trajectories and transitioning to employment in organisations outside the consultancy sector, such as tech companies (e.g., Karl Storz) and financial institutions (e.g., ING Nederland), while others who previously worked in consultancy have moved into state-owned enterprises and government administration roles. Additionally, there is an increased representation of graduates in managerial positions, with 19 graduates, or 21% of all employed graduates, occupying such roles by October 2024. This trend signifies a shift in career progression towards higher-ranking positions. Correspondingly, there has been a slight decrease in the total number of alumni classified as administration professionals, despite this category remaining the predominant occupational class among PIONEER graduates.

Discussion and Conclusion

This paper showed to what extent a digital public governance MSc programme has managed to bridge the gap between Public Administration and ICT studies by training digital public governance professionals. It did so by studying the characteristics of applicants to the programme (background and motivation) and the programme outcomes in terms of substantive thematic choices students make, and the careers graduates pursue after their studies. Four major observations stand out.

The first observation is that applicants with an information science or IT background do not apply in large numbers to the programme. It is unclear whether this is related to intrinsic factors, or to misdirected programme marketing efforts. Second, in their motivation letters, applicants show a good grasp of the relevance and urgency of digital transformation to develop their countries. They mainly do so by linking digitalisation to the (mal)functioning of public administration in their countries and to specific policy problems. Yet, they devote considerably less attention to information systems development and management, suggesting a less prior knowledge about these topics.

A third observation is that the programme is successful at attracting non-Europeans yet struggles to attract equally high numbers of Europeans. A likely cause of this imbalance is that scholarships are only available to non-EEA students. At the same time, many public sector organisations in Europe remain relatively closed to non-nationals, in particular when potential employees do not speak the national language. For this reason, most of the PIONEEŔs non-European graduates tend to work for the private sector.

This directly relates to a fourth observation. PIONEER wanted to train “translators” to bridge the worlds of the public sector and that of IT. We assumed this would result in employment in government as project managers, advisors or procurers of systems. Yet we observe that only a small number of graduates work for the public sector. Consulting firms with a specialisation in public sector projects and digital governance hold significant appeal for graduates, either for intrinsic reasons or for the financial appeal. This may also speak about the dominant structural features of e-governments where the bridging function has been often delegated to private consultancies. Still, many graduates work as administration professionals, suggesting they at least take up some bridging function. We also see around 11% of graduates in PhD positions.

The implications of these findings are twofold. One is that the examined digital public governance programme, PIONEER, does imbue graduates with the capabilities of translators, who, however, rarely take up positions within the core public sector. The pull-factor of consulting firms appears to be strong. The other implication is that the programme predominantly attracts applicants with a public administration/policy or social science profile, while the number of applicants with an information science or IT background remains relatively limited.

These conclusions have, in turn, implications for both practice and research. First, the design of such interdisciplinary public sector innovation and e-governance programmes needs to guarantee a balanced interest from applicants coming from a wider pool of disciplines. For example, by offering a special track of advanced government IT-related skills to attract students with IT or information systems backgrounds. Second, public sectors may need to further develop the dedicated career track for the e-government profession to better signal the need and dynamic career prospects for such students. Another potential solution may lie in integrating public administration and policy content into traditional information science or computer science programmes, rather than in setting up transdisciplinary programmes. Finally, we also call for further research to gain better insights into these questions. Whereas the current study contributes to the research on teaching in the digital era by showcasing the wide-range motivation of e-governance students and their high-level employability, it also shows that setting up an interdisciplinary programme for bridging the social and technical worlds comes with specific challenges. More research is needed to understand these dynamics in different contexts.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-ipo-10.1177_15701255251401362 - Supplemental material for Translating Between Public Administration and the Digital. A Study on the Motivation and Career Choices of Digital Governance Students

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-ipo-10.1177_15701255251401362 for Translating Between Public Administration and the Digital. A Study on the Motivation and Career Choices of Digital Governance Students by Steven Van de Walle, Joep Crompvoets, Thomas Balbach, Jörg Becker, Tobias Brandt, Lena Clever, Michael Räckers, Claudia Villena-Tagle, Egert Juuse and Veiko Lember in Information Polity

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Funded by the European Union, grant agreement 101082574 — PIONEER. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

ORCID iDs

Joep Crompvoets

Tobias Brandt

Notes

Author Biographies

Steven Van de Walle is Professor of Public Management at KU Leuven, Public Governance Institute, and main coordinator of the Erasmus Mundus joint master's program ‘Public Sector Innovation and eGovernance’ (PIONEER).

Joep Crompvoets, is Professor of Information Management in the Public Sector at KU Leuven, Public Governance Institute and PIONEER academic coordinator.

Thomas Balbach is PhD student at KU Leuven, Public Governance Institute and PIONEER alumnus.

Jörg Becker is Professor and Chair of Business Informatics and Information Management at University of Münster, Department of Information Systems, and PIONEER academic coordinator.

Tobias Brandt is Professor of Digital Innovation at University of Münster, Department of Information Systems, and PIONEER program lecturer.

Lena Clever is Post-Doctoral Researcher at University of Münster, Department of Information Systems, and PIONEER program manager.

Michael Räckers is Head of Department at University of Münster, Department of Information Systems, and PIONEER academic coordinator.

Claudia Villena-Tagle is Assistant at University of Münster, Department of Information Systems, and PIONEER alumnae.

Egert Juuse is Research Fellow at Tallinn University of Technology, Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, and PIONEER program manager.

Veiko Lember is Professor of Innovation Studies at Tallinn University of Technology, Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, and PIONEER academic coordinator.

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