On Monday, January 24, 2011, SONIC Lab Director Professor Noshir Contractor and Dr. Jan van Dijk of the Center for eGovernment (CFES), signed a memorandum of understanding.
The aim of the collaboration is to combine the research expertise of CFES with SONIC Lab’s in advancing our understanding the networked government. Examples of networks with the context of government:
- Networks of collaborating governmental agencies
- Communication networks between citizens, businesses, and governments
- Intermediary networks (roles of intermediaries in the stakeholder/government relationship)
- Open data networks
Understanding the complexities of the networked government is difficult. Research in this domain is scarce. The shortage of research is magnified by the rise of social media (web 2.0). We lack theories that explain and anticipate the transformation and impact of the networked government at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. The cooperation between CFES and SONIC will seek to advance our knowledge in this field.
The mission of the SONIC/CFES collaboration is the following:
The SONlC/CFES collaboration combines social network theories, methods, and tools with knowledge from the e-Government domain to understand and meet the needs of the networked government.
The research groups will exchange knowledge, collaborate on funding of projects for (internationally comparative) research, and coauthor publications.
The website for CFES: http://www.utwente.nl/ibr/cfes/
The website for SONIC: http://sonic.northwestern.edu/