The Research Area “Digital Public Governance” investigates how processes of digital transformation reshape the organization, practices, and legitimacy of contemporary governance. It conceptualizes digital transformation not merely as a technical upgrade of public administration, but as a technologically mediated political process that reorganizes how public institutions generate knowledge and exercise authority. At the same time, these transformations reconfigure the relationship between citizens and state actors by altering modes of interaction, participation, and accountability.

To investigate these dynamics, the Research Area focuses in particular on the design, use, and effects of data infrastructures and algorithmic systems across a broad range of policy domains, including public administration, welfare provision, migration governance, and national and international security. Particular analytical attention is paid to settings in which automated or data-driven systems mediate consequential decisions and thereby redistribute power and responsibility. A central concern of the Research Area thereby lies in understanding how digital public governance is enacted and contested in practice. Research thus investigates how digital systems are calibrated, stabilized, and challenged through everyday administrative work, public–private arrangements, regulatory and legal oversight, and forms of citizen engagement.