European eGovernment Training: Future Perspectives Frank Wilson 1 Helle Zinner Henriksen 2 Patries Kordelaar 3 Bert Mulder 4 Tom Van Engers 5 Arre Zuurmond 6 Abstract The trend towards more online and interoperable governmental services and background processes introduces challenges for trainers and educators working with governments. The immediacy and connectedness of electronic services and processes causes government actors to be more directly involved as organisers and managers of services and processes linking directly with citizens and business. Rapid of change brings a challenge to eGovernment actors and educators to bridge the resulting knowledge and skills gap. A group of universities and government trainers have developed and piloted a master class in eGovernment education addressing this problem. Latest methods, tools and content were used to allow assessment of best approaches and future directions. The master class was delivered to eGovernment trainers from government organisations in 10 countries, including 7 from Eastern Europe. This paper reports on that activity and its results. 1. Training Challenges in eGovernment “Transformations will impact all areas of government and pick up several topics for deeper research and analyses, taking into account practical results across Europe and abroad” [1]. The above quote is inspired by the progress towards an integrated and harmonised administration in Europe being achieved by the National and EU-level eGovernment programmes. Governments, along with the EU research programmes, recognise that while the basic technical and organisational research and development for eGovernment has made significant progress, the very real task of making these processes and services a reality across Europe now relies on Governments reaching common specifications for pan-European services and interoperable processes [2]. eGovernment actors face several challenges as a consequence of these changes of emphasis: • Vocational skills requirements within Government change as services change. • Mobility and relevance of skills becomes an issue for movement of staff between departments (localisation) and also between Governments (internationalisation). 1 Interaction Design Ltd, London, UK. 2 Copenhagen Business School, Denmark 3 University of Amsterdam, Netherlands 4 University of The Hague, Netherlands 5 University of Amsterdam, Netherlands 6 ZENC BV, The Hague, Netherlands