Under the auspices of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group 8.5 (Information Systems in Public Administration) or IFIP WG 8.5 for short, the dual IFIP EGOV-ePart conference 2016 presented itself as a high-caliber five-track conference and a doctoral colloquium dedicated to research and practice on electronic government and electronic participation.

Scholars from around the world have used this premier academic forum for over fifteen years, which has given it a worldwide reputation as one of the top two conferences in the research domains of electronic, open, and smart government, policy, and electronic participation.

This conference of five partially intersecting tracks presents advances in the socio-technological domain of the public sphere demonstrating cutting-edge concepts, methods, and styles of investigation by multiple disciplines.

The Call for Papers attracted over one hundred thirty-five submissions of completed research papers, work-in-progress papers on ongoing research (including doctoral papers), project and case descriptions as well as four workshop and panel proposals. Papers in the Joint Proceedings of IFIP EGOV-ePart 2016 comprise accepted submissions of all categories and all tracks with the exception of twenty-four papers from the General EGOV track, the Open/Big Data Track, and the Smart Gov Track, which were published in Springer LNCS vol. 9820, and fourteen papers from the General ePart Track and the Policy Modeling and Policy Informatics Tracks, which were published in Springer LNCS vol. 9821.

As in the previous years and per recommendation of the Paper Awards Committee under the lead of the honorable Professor Olivier Glassey of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, the dual IFIP EGOV-ePart 2016 Conference Organizing Committee again granted outstanding paper awards in three distinct categories:

• The most interdisciplinary and innovative research contribution

• The most compelling critical research reflection

• The most promising practical concept

The winners in each category were announced in the award ceremony at the conference dinner, which has always been a highlight of each dual IFIP EGOV-ePart conference.

The dual IFIP EGOV-ePart 2016 conference was jointly hosted in Guimarães, Portugal by University of Minho (UMinho) and United Nations University Operating Unit on Policy-Driven Electronic Governance (UNU-EGOV). Established in 1973, UMinho operates on three campuses, one in Braga, and two in Guimarães, educating approximately 19,500 students by an academic staff of 1,300 located in eight schools, three institutes and several cultural and specialized units. It is one of the largest public universities in Portugal and a significant actor in the development of the Minho region in the north of Portugal. UNU-EGOV is a newly established UN organization focused on research, policy and leadership education in the area of Digital Government, located in Guimarães and hosted by UMinho. The organization of the dual conference was partly supported by the project “SmartEGOV: Harnessing EGOV for Smart Governance”, NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000037, funded by FEDER in the context of Programa Operacional Regional do Norte.

Although ample traces of Celtic and Roman presence and settlements were found in the area, Guimarães became notable as the center of early nation building for Portugal in the late 11^th century, when it became the seat of the Count of Portugal. In 1128, the Battle of São Mamede was fought near the town, which resulted in the independence of the Northern Portuguese territories around Coimbra and Guimarães, which later extended further South to form the independent nation of Portugal. Today, Guimarães has a population of about 160,000. While it has developed into an important center of textile and shoe industries along with metal mechanics, the city has maintained its charming historical center and romantic medieval aura. It was a great pleasure to hold the dual IFIP EGOV-ePart 2016 conference at this special place.

Many people make large events like this conference happen. We thank the over one-hundred members of the dual IFIP EGOV-ePart 2016 Program Committee and dozens of additional reviewers for their great efforts in reviewing the submitted papers. Delfina Sá Soares of the Department of Information Systems at the UMinho and Tomasz Janowski of the UNU-EGOV and their respective teams in Guimarães, Portugal, were major contributors who helped organize the dual conference and manage zillions of details locally. We would also like to thank the University of Washington organizing team members Kelle M Rose and Daniel R Wilson for their great support and administrative management of the review process and the compilation of the proceedings.

September 2016,

The dual IFIP EGOV-ePart 2016 Lead Coorganizers

Hans Jochen Scholl (2016 Lead organizer)

Olivier Glassey (Chair, Awards Committee)

Marijn Janssen (Lead, General E-Government Track)

Bram Klievink (Lead, Open Government & Open/Big Data Track)

Ida Lindgren (Lead, PhD Colloquium)

Peter Parycek (Lead, Smart Governance/Government/Cities Track)

Efthimios Tambouris (Lead, General eParticipation Track)

Maria A. Wimmer (Lead, Policy Modeling/Policy Informatics Track)

Tomasz Janowski, (Co-host, UNU-EGOV, Portugal)

Delfina Sá Soares, (Co-host, University of Minho, Portugal)

Along with co-chairs Yannis Charalabidis, Mila Gascó, Ramon Gil-Garcia, Panos Panagiotopoulos, Theresa Pardo, Øystein Sæbø, and Anneke Zuiderwijk