11th Academic Days on Open Government & Digital Issues
On 3 and 4 November 2026, IMODEV organize in the form online and also at the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the Institut Juridique de la Sorbonne (IRJS-DreDis), the “11th Academic Days on Open Government and Digital Challenges, 11e Journé es universitaires sur les enjeux des Gouvernements Ouverts et du numé rique”. Under the direction of Irene Bouhadana and William Gilles, this international conference will be the 43th edition of a series of IMODEV international conferences on Information Society Law and Governance.
This 11th edition is the continuation of the first fourth Academic days on Open Government Issues, held in November from 2017 to 2025, and in December 2016, during the week dedicated to the Open Government Global Summit, hosted by France, as chair of Open Government Partnership. These Academic days aim to bring together all of academia concerned with issues related to open government and digital issues by favoring a broad and multidisciplinary dimension.
One of the goals of the open government process is to promote greater transparency and encourage citizen participation and collaboration in government decision-making, but also to promote government accountability. In this perspective, it is important to emphasize the role of citizens, civil society and stakeholders in decision-making to improve government policies.
Since the 2nd edition, the Academic days expressly refer to “digital issues” in the title of the international conference, as digitalization is a major issue for open governments in the information society. Thus, speakers can deliver speeches focused on open government issues, on digital issues or concerning both open government and digital issues
The Origins of the “Academic Days on Open Government & Digital Issues”
Since 2011, experiences of member countries of OGP have shown that, although civil society is largely associated with the process of open governments, the academic community has not been adequately consulted. It is important to emphasize that the university community must be part of the open government process. The concept of “Academic Days” was never experienced in previous events of the OGP. By hosting this event, Irene Bouhadana and William Gilles decided to organize for the first time a scientific congress dedicated to open government and digital issues, and willing bring together academics – regardless their disciplines – to enable the discussion of
these issues through a scientific approach. The tradition has continued since then.
Academic Days aim to bring together all academics interested in these matters, including nationals of a non-OGP country. The underlying objective is to build a university doctrine on open-government and digital issues: IMODEV, as an international network of researchers and academics, and the University Paris 1 Panthé on-Sorbonne already are working fully in favor of promoting these themes.
An Interdisciplinary and International Event
The event aims to bring together everyone who seeks to reflect on the opening of governments and digital issues through a scientific approach.
The event is multidisciplinary and seeks to associate law, political science, economics, administration, mathematics, computer sciences, social sciences, history, sociology, environmental sciences, arts and all other subjects or areas that may be related to these issues.
Due to its transversal and multidisciplinary nature, space for debates on governmental and open digital issues with representatives from different countries is encouraged and opened up.
An Event Open to Youth, Students and Young Researchers: Transmitting to the Leaders of Tomorrow
Moreover, these days are intended to also be open to young researchers (PhDs, PhD students, master students). The intention is to involve the younger generations to the challenges of tomorrow regarding open government and digital issues. The young researchers can apply to be part of the organization and the moderation of roundtables or workshops, under the supervision of a senior researcher.
The Possibility for Academics to Value their Research in the Various Formats of the Event
The variety of the proposed interventions allows each participant, regardless of her/his field of research, to present and defend her/his work (places subject to availability).
Workshops will allow participants to discuss, contribute and build on themes related with open governments and digital issues in open groups of ten to twenty people.
Workshops can cover all the topics related to the issues of open government and digital issues such as:
- Open Government
- Algorithms
- Artificial intelligence
- Blockchain
- Crowdfunding
- Open Data
- Corruption & Open Government
- Right to Information
- Right to Privacy
- Citizen participation
- Citizen collaboration
- Foundations of Open
- Government or digital issues (philosophy, sociology)
- Open Parliament
- Accountability
- Open Justice
- Freedom of expression in the digital age
- European Union & Open
- Government & digital issues
- Big Data Issues
- Cybersecurity
- Digital Surveillance
- Fake News / disinformation
- Smart cities
- Participatory budgeting
- Digital exclusion
- Network Neutrality
- Lobby
- Election campaigns, via politics and digital
- Transparency and national security
- collaborative right
- Mediation
- Digital Sovereignty
Once the workshop meets a sufficient number of participants (minimum of five), any speaker can propose to the Scientific Committee of Academic days other themes. The proposal must indicate the working language (French, English or Spanish), the name and position of the responsible of the workshop, the workshop title and a ten lines abstract (written in French, English, or Spanish) that will be reviewed by the scientific committee.
Information and contact
We remain at your disposal for any questions regarding the organization. We invite you to visit now our Internet platform dedicated to the event at the following address:
http://academicdays.imodev.org
Through this platform, you can register now as a speaker or as a participant.
Registration on the platform is mandatory (before July 10, 2026). There, you can submit your proposals for presentation.
Looking forward to welcoming you at the Academic days on open government & digital issues, we invite you to consult our Internet platform and discover all of our activities:
http://www.imodev.org.