Inaugural Chair in E-Government appointed at Victoria

Inaugural Chair in E-Government appointed at Victoria

(12/10/2006)

An Oxford University researcher has been appointed as the inaugural Chair in E-Government at Victoria University of Wellington, one of the first such positions in the world.

Dr Miriam Lips, who is a Research Fellow at Oxford University�s Internet Institute and an Associate Professor in the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology & Society at Tilburg University in The Netherlands, will take up her position early next year.

The Chair in E-Government is believed to be only the second such Chair in the world, following the establishment of the Cisco Chair in E-Democracy at Oxford University.

Dr Lips� appointment followed an extensive international recruitment process involving a number of high-quality candidates. The Chair has been supported by the State Services Commission and Datacom, which are co-sponsoring the position through the Victoria University of Wellington Foundation.

Vice-Chancellor, Professor Pat Walsh, said the University was pleased to be able to recruit an academic of Dr Lips� calibre.

�The appointment reinforces the growing significance of e-government initiatives and New Zealand�s leadership in this field and I�m sure Dr Lips will be recognised as an authority in this field. She has a strong track record in Europe for research on e-government issues and playing a leading role in several significant research projects for organisations such as the European Commission.�

Dr Lips said she was delighted by the unique opportunity to develop an international centre of excellence in the field of e-government.

"This topic deserves broad attention in a period of time that governments increasingly are confronted with fundamental questions due to the introduction, management and use of a large variety of Information and communication technologies in their relationships with society."

Dr Lips, who holds a PhD and Master of Public Administration degree from Erasmus University Rotterdam, is the Project Leader or Scientific Director or Activity Leader on several major research projects for the European Commission, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research and the British Economic & Social Research Council. A research project for the Commission on privacy and identity management is worth �10 million, of which Dr Lips is responsible for �460,000.

In addition to e-government, Dr Lips� research and teaching interests include identity management, digital citizenship, personalisation, internet governance, regulation in the information society and public management.

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