Norway is one of the most digital countries in the world. People are increasingly connected through electronic platforms, and this transition from analogue to digital systems in the public administration has a significant social impact. New digital technologies can make public administration more cost-efficient and accessible, but it can also give rise to new societal problems suck as exclusion, marginalization and increased social differences.
Research Centre for Digitalisation of Public Services and Citizenship (CEDIC)'s main goal is to develop multi-disciplinary knowledge from about the relationship between digitalisation and the provision of welfare services, and the risks of exclusion from the opportunities to enjoy full and effective social citizenship.
The centre's objectives
CEDIC will examine how processes of digitalisation influence the provision of welfare state services, and the ability of citizens at risk of social exclusion to access, use and benefit from these services. The core issue is how digitalisation modifies the capabilities of different social groups and individuals to exercise social citizenship.
The centre's objectives
- To empirically examine policy measures aimed to ensure that digitalisation of public welfare services foster the exercise of full and effective citizenship
- To investigate ethical, legal and human rights issues as they pertain to digitized public welfare service
- To empirically trace innovation processes in public welfare services and probe how different stakeholders negotiate the reconfiguration of the welfare state
- To empirically explore how digitization affects the everyday life of vulnerable persons in welfare institutions (e.g. schools, nursing homes and child welfare institutions
- To facilitate exploitation of findings and development of sustainable solutions to prevent or reduce risks of exclusion from citizenship in the wake of the digital transformations in the public sector
CEDIC's mission is to produce groundbreaking research, provide training and advancement of mid- and early stage researchers, and provide a fertile student environment for PhD and MA students.
Research groups
The team is organized in five research groups:
- Digitization and social policy. Examining and cross-nationally comparing law and policy measures aimed to ensure that digitization of public welfare services foster the exercise of full and effective citizenship for vulnerable persons. Group leaders: Arne Dulsrud and Dag Slettemås.
- Digitization, ethics and law. Conducting cross-national comparisons of regulatory policies, legislation and human rights issues for vulnerable users of digitized public welfare services and producing new knowledge on how legislation and policies in this policy domain are shaped, transformed and implemented in a multilevel governance system. Group leaders: Cathrine Egeland and Julia Köhler-Olsen.
- Digitization and innovation processes. Tracing innovation processes in public welfare institutions by exploring how they come about and function in public services, as well as examining how different stakeholders interact with the reconfiguration of the welfare state through digitization. Group leaders: Lars E. F. Johannessen and Erik Børve Rasmussen.
- Digitization and everyday life in welfare institutions. Exploring how digitization affects the everyday life of actors in welfare institutions such as schools, nursing homes and child welfare institutions. Group leaders: Ardis Storm-Mathisen and Tore Gulden.
