Blockchain refers to a range of general purpose technologies to exchange information and transact digital assets in distributed networks. The core question addressed in this paper is whether blockchain technology will lead to innovation and transformation of governmental processes. To address this questions we present a critical assessment of the often exaggerated benefits of blockchain technology found in the literature and discuss their implications for governmental organizations and processes. We plea for a shift from a technology-driven to need-driven approach in which blockchain applications are customized to ensure a fit with requirements of administrative processes and in which the administrative processes are changed to benefit from the technology. Having sound governance models are found to be a conditions for realizing benefits. Based on a critical assessment we offer directions for further research into the potential benefits of BC applications in e-government and the role of governance of BC architectures and applications to comply with societal needs and public values. Highlights • Blockchain implications and the need for institutional changes and transformations are not well-understood • Potential benefits of blockchain range from technical to economic and strategic • Implementation and adoption determines if the possible benefits can be realized • Governments has a dual responsibility: governance by BC and BC governance • Blockchain changes information stewardship

The ability of blockchain technology to record transactions on distributed ledgers offers new opportunities for governments to improve transparency, prevent fraud, and establish trust in the public sector. However, blockchain adoption and use in the context of e-Government is rather unexplored in academic literature. In this paper, we systematically review relevant research to understand the current research topics, challenges and future directions regarding blockchain adoption for e-Government. The results show that the adoption of blockchainbased applications in e-Government is still very limited and there is a lack of empirical evidence. The main challenges faced in blockchain adoption are predominantly presented as technological aspects such as security, scalability and flexibility. From an organizational point of view, the issues of acceptability and the need of new governance models are presented as the main barriers to adoption. Moreover, the lack of legal and regulatory support is identified as the main environmental barrier of adoption. Based on the challenges presented in the literature, we propose future research questions that need to be addressed to inform how the public sector should approach the blockchain technology adoption.

Blockchain technology is heralded for improving trust and can provide a new approach for creating transparency and promoting accountability of government activities. However, it is still not clear how and in what ways blockchain technologies can improve this. This study examines the mechanisms and capability of blockchain technology to contribute to improved transparency and accountability in government. We use a set of system transparency and accountability concepts and mechanisms to critically assess the capabilities of blockchain. By means of a land registration case in Indonesia, we investigate the effects of blockchain on the transparency and accountability of the system. Creating transparency and accountability might be more difficult than expected, as non-technical issues need to be addressed. Based on our assessment we discuss key issues, including digital ID, privacy, interoperability, connectivity and technology aware population, computational efficiency and storage size, acceptability, check and control mechanism, data validity, digital signature, algorithm transparency, law and regulation support, and dispute resolution, that must be considered in developing a transparent and accountable blockchain-based e-Government system.

The incidence of natural disasters worldwide is increasing. As a result, a growing number of people is in need of humanitarian support, for which limited resources are available. This requires an effective and efficient prioritization of the most vulnerable people in the preparedness phase, and the most affected people in the response phase of humanitarian action. Data-driven models have the potential to support this prioritization process. However, the applications of these models in a country requires a certain level of data preparedness. To achieve this level of data preparedness on a large scale we need to know how to facilitate, stimulate and coordinate data-sharing between humanitarian actors. We use a data ecosystem perspective to develop success criteria for establishing a "humanitarian data ecosystem". We first present the development of a general framework with data ecosystem governance success criteria based on a systematic literature review. Subsequently, the applicability of this framework in the humanitarian sector is assessed through a case study on the "Community Risk Assessment and Prioritization toolbox" developed by the Netherlands Red Cross. The empirical evidence led to the adaption the framework to the specific criteria that need to be addressed when aiming to establish a successful humanitarian data ecosystem. CSS CONCEPTS • Information systems → Information systems applications; data warehouses; data analytics; • Applied computing → Operations research; forecasting; • Social and professional topics → Professional topics; management of computing and information systems;

For determining the correctness of an import declaration lodged by a declarant within international shipping, customs authorities rely on manual cross-validation of the declaration with other trade documents. However, the sheer volume of import declarations lodged annually makes it impossible to manually cross-validate each declaration. Smart contracts have the potential to automatically aggregate relevant information from blockchain-based ledgers for lodging and cross-validation. In this paper we explore how such smart contract could be implemented. We demonstrate that a smart import declaration can be used to automatically aggregate information from different sources (e.g., pro forma invoice data elements stored on the blockchain ledger). However, technical and organizational considerations that are inherent to blockchain technology need to be addressed for the smart import declaration to be acceptable for both customs authorities and declarants. It is therefore suggested that future work focusses on data standards required to enable automatic aggregation of relevant trade information and the generation of the import declaration and governance of the smart import declaration by customs authorities to assure correctness.

The transition towards low-carbon thermal energy systems requires solid information provision to support both public and private decision-making, which is future proof and optimal in the context of the system dependencies. We adopt a data ecosystem approach to answer the following research question: How can a data ecosystem be analyzed and developed to enable the data-driven support of the local thermal energy transition, by capturing both social and technical aspects of the urban thermal energy system? A case study research design of the Netherlands, with an embedded case of the city of Utrecht therein, was used, including data collection involving 21 expert interviews representing a diversity of stakeholders, and qualitative data analysis using NVivo version 10. The data ecosystem includes the necessary elements, roles, and context for decision makers in a local heat transition and captures the social as well as technical aspects of an urban thermal energy system. Assessment of the data ecosystem pertaining to thermal heat transition in the city of Utrecht shows that it is still in its infancy phase, with challenges, barriers, and shortcomings in all its key elements. We present suggestions for the (re-)design of an inclusive and holistic data ecosystem that addresses the current shortcomings.

In the past few years, researchers and practitioners have highlighted the potential of Blockchain (BC) and distributed ledger technology to revolutionize government processes. Blockchain technology enables distributed power and embedded security. As such, Blockchain is regarded as an innovative, general purpose technology, offering new ways of organization in many domains, including e-government for transactions and information exchange. However, due to its very characteristics of peer to peer information exchange, its distributed nature, the still developing technology, the involvement of new actors, roles, etc., the implementation of blockchain applications raise issues that need governance attention. BC initiatives have implications for citizen trust, privacy, inclusion and participation. Governmental organizations need a thorough understanding of the BC design principles, the possible applications in the domain of e-government and the exploration of governance mechanisms to deal with the limitations and challenges of the BC technology when used in a myriad of sectors, ranging from the financial and business sector to the social domains of healthcare and education. In this panel we explore the impact of block chain technology on all levels of government and create an awareness of effects or applications in society that raise governance issues.

1The paper argues that a new category of infrastructures is emerging, user-driven, selforganizing and with de-centralized control: Inverse Infrastructures (IIs) coordination mechanisms). Theoretical concepts are drawn from standardization theory, from studies on Open Source Software communities, and from theories of self-organizing systems (i.e. Complex Adaptive Systems and System-ofSystems theory). The two clusters of II cases are peer-to-peer networks (e.g. Napster, Gnutella and Joost) and wireless networks (Wireless Leiden and FON). The paper concludes that, similar to the behavior of ant colonies, II emergence can be understood as an accumulation of local attempts to optimize a situation. Complex citizen and citizen-company partnerships evolve which compete with existing infrastructure provisions and touch on public values (e.g. privacy, copyright). A policy response is needed.here is a widespread fascination among researchers of various disciplines with order that stems from chaos, with method in madness, with complexity that results from simplicity (e.g. ant colony behavior and Internet; Holland, 1995), and with the coherent, highly valued achievements that stem from self-organization 2 (Open Source Software; Perens, 1999). These examples fascinate us foremost because the outcome of self-organization would lead us to suspect that a large amount of centralized orchestration takes place, whereas the opposite seems to be the case.In the field of ICT infrastructures, a similar phenomenon is occurring. Where previously the grand design, a top-down and centralized approach, seemed imperative for harmonized infrastructure development, at present a different phenomenon is gaining ground: Inverse Infrastructures (Vree, 2003). Inverse Infrastructures (IIs) develop bottom-up, and are driven by users. Self-organization is a key element in their emergence.In the following we will argue that IIs represent a paradigm shift in infrastructure development, a shift which policy makers have difficulties to deal with. Moreover, policy makers have little knowledge and experience 1 We sincerely thank our two colleagues of the ICT section Jan van den Berg en Semir Daskapan for the interesting discussions and feedback they have given us, and the anonymous reviewers of SIIT2007 for their good comments. This work was supported in part by the Next Generation Infrastructures foundation (www.nginfra.nl). 2 Self-organization refers to 'unsupervised learning'. In the case of networks this means that there are inputs and outputs but "no feedback from the environment to say what those outputs should be or whether they are correct. The network must discover for itself patterns, features, regularities, correlations or categories in the input data and code for them in the output. The units and connections must thus display some degree of self-organization" (Hertz et al., 1991, p.197) T