Research project · 2023 – 2027

DIGI-FRONT

Transnational Collaboration at the Digital Frontier

IT University of Copenhagen Aarhus University Technical University of Denmark

The Digi-Front project

The Transnational Collaboration at the Digital Frontier (Digi-Front) starts from the premise that public sector digitalization is increasingly driven by transnational collaboration. We ask how best practices of digital government travel across national contexts, and what kind of politically and culturally transformative effects this may have on national welfare states.

The circulating best practices of digital government have an unacknowledged political character: the process of public digitalization does not just streamline the welfare state but also fundamentally transforms the internal working of the state, as well as the relations to its citizens, the private sector, and other countries.

An STS-informed study, the project theorises public digitalization as a transnational network of artefacts, expertise, and events — and ethnographically follows three countries deeply engaged in knowledge sharing.

Duration
2023 – 2027
Active
Lead institution
IT University of Copenhagen
Technologies in Practice
Events

Project events

Data sprint

A Timeline of Danish Digitalization

A collaborative data sprint bringing together researchers and practitioners to map and analyse the historical trajectory of Danish public sector digitalization.

Symposium

Statecraft, Sovereignty & Digital Government

16–17 April · Goldsmiths, University of London

Bringing together scholars within STS, software and platform studies, media studies, international relations, political theory, and cultural studies to encourage conversation and collaboration through curated panels.


Hosted by
  • Irina Papazu — IT University of Copenhagen
  • Jessamy Perriam — ITU / Australian National University
  • Nathaniel Tkacz — Goldsmiths, University of London (co-host)
Conference panel

DASTS 2026: Encountering Infrastructures

29–30 June · Aalborg University, Copenhagen

Digi-Front has a panel at the Danish STS conference exploring how infrastructures are made, maintained, imagined, and transformed across social, ecological, and technological domains.


Submit abstracts
Submit here ↗

Meet the researchers

IP
Irina Papazu
Principal Investigator
IT University of Copenhagen

Associate professor in the Technologies in Practice research group at ITU. Studies public sector digitalization in Denmark and abroad ethnographically. As PI, responsible for thinking across and considering synergies between the subprojects.

JP
Jessamy Perriam
Co-Investigator
ITU / Australian National University

Associate professor in the Technologies in Practice research group at ITU and senior lecturer in the School of Cybernetics at ANU. Works primarily on the UK case study with a focus on how expertise shifts across national contexts.

AT
Alexei Tsinovoi
Co-Investigator
Aarhus University

Assistant professor of digital strategic communication at the department of Media Studies and Journalism. Involved in the digital methods components and ethnographic studies.

AK
Anders Kristian Munk
Co-Investigator
Technical University of Denmark

Anders Kristian Munk is professor of computational anthropology at the Section for Human-Centered Innovation, DTU Management. He is responsible for the digital methods components of the project and will work closely with Lasse Uhrskov Kristensen and Alexei Tsinovoi to map processes of transnational digitalization on platforms like GitHub, Hugging Face or LinkedIn.

LK
Lasse Uhrskov Kristensen
PhD Student
Technical University of Denmark

Primarily involved with the Artefacts work package. Maps code-sharing practices between government entities on GitHub, Hugging Face, and LinkedIn.

TP
Tobias Pedersen
PhD Student
IT University of Copenhagen

Studies how public digitalization expertise is ascribed value in the everyday practice of digitalization professionals, and how knowledge travels across borders and between sectors.

AG
Ask Greve Johansen
Co-Investigator
IT University of Copenhagen

II
Ida Marie Iversen
Research Assistant
IT University of Copenhagen

Research

Projects & Articles

Transnational Collaboration at the Digital Frontier — ITU Pure ↗