Five Days of Studying Digital Transformation of Public Administration: How the Smart Regulation & Digital Policy Summer School Went
From July 6 to July 10, 2026, the International Laboratory for Digital Transformation in Public Administration of IPAMM, HSE University, held the Smart Regulation & Digital Policy Summer School in Moscow. The program brought together students, doctoral researchers, lecturers, and practitioners from universities and organizations of Russia, the United Kingdom, China, and Israel. The five days of the School encompassed lectures by leading Russian and international researchers, a seminar on academic publishing, visits to the flagship venues of digital Moscow, project work, and the defense of the participants’ own solutions.
Day One. Global Trends, Digital Trust, and Public Services with a Human Face
The School was opened by the Head of the Laboratory, Evgeny Styrin, and welcoming remarks were also addressed to the audience by the School’s international guests: Professor Eran Vigoda-Gadot of the University of Haifa and Professor Tao Chen of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, who noted the special value of a venue where researchers and practitioners from different countries meet. Evgeny Styrin then continued the substantive program with the lecture “Global Trends in Digital Transformation of the State”, presenting a world panorama of the digital transformation of government: from the first e-government programs to the platform and ecosystem models of today.
One of the brightest events of the day was Eran Vigoda-Gadot’s lecture “Digital Trust in Government: How Technologies Reshape the Link “Quality of Governance – Justice – Satisfaction – Legitimacy””. Starting from the classical social contract theory of Hobbes and Rousseau, in which citizens give up part of their freedom in exchange for the stability of society, the professor laid out the great paradox of our time: to trust or not to trust the state when technology becomes the intermediary between citizen and government. The OECD data presented in the lecture show how differently citizens of different countries answer this question. The key idea of the talk was the concept of the Digital Governance Footprint: citizens perceive the state through the entire set of its digital technologies and services, and their emotional and mental reactions, from anxiety and alienation to satisfaction and joy, mediate the link between digitalization and the outcomes of public organizations. The professor presented an integrative model of human, machine, and organization interaction and spoke about the cycle of joint research with the Laboratory, the first article of which has been accepted for publication in the world’s leading journal Public Administration Review. The main conclusion of the lecture sounded reassuring: the digital state is here to stay, and that is precisely why science must understand what the person on the other side of the screen feels.
Just a few hours later, the participants could see these ideas at work: the second half of the day was spent at the flagship public services center in the Metropolis mall, where the School’s participants received a truly warm welcome and were shown around all the spaces of the office. The flagship center impresses with the range of its possibilities: here one can undergo a health check-up, obtain an international passport through an automated procedure, and even hold a ceremonial wedding registration. In a conversation with the center’s management, the participants saw for themselves that the flagship office has become a genuine center of attraction for citizens, a place where digitalization helps the state to be more humane and to build trusting relationships, looking each other in the eye. It would have been hard to invent a more vivid illustration of the morning lecture on digital trust.
Day Two. Digital Products of the Tax Service, Publishing Secrets, and the Smart City
The second day began with a lecture by Alexander Lyalikov, Deputy Head of the Directorate for Organizational Development and User Experience of the Federal Tax Service of Russia, on the modern digital products of the tax service and the plans for their development. The Federal Tax Service of Russia is today deservedly considered one of the leaders in the digitalization of public administration, and the lecture showed how this result has been achieved: the participants learned how the ecosystem of taxpayer personal accounts is built, how the “My Tax” app has allowed millions of self-employed citizens to legalize their income in a few taps, how tax deductions are granted proactively, and how tax monitoring is changing the very model of the service’s interaction with large businesses. The lecturer paid particular attention to work with user experience: every service goes through research and consistent refinement so that interacting with the tax service becomes as unnoticeable as possible for the person and requires no special knowledge. The “Geochecks” service drew lively interest from the audience: a heat map of retail receipts showing where cash registers are concentrated, how often receipts are issued, and what the average receipt is at a specific point on the map. A vivid example of how tax administration data turns into a tool for analyzing economic activity.
Eran Vigoda-Gadot then held the seminar “Publishing in Public Administration Journals: Strategies, Standards, and Practical Advice”, walking the participants through the entire path of a research article. The professor began with the hardest question: where good research ideas come from and why a reference to a “gap in the literature” does not in itself make a piece of work significant, since the value of an article is determined by its theoretical contribution and its usefulness for practice and society. He called theory the heart of the paper, worth spending a substantial share of the total working time on. The discussion then turned to the choice of research design, from observational studies and surveys to field, laboratory, and natural experiments, and to methods of analysis, including structural equation modeling and machine learning, as well as the value of study preregistration and open science. The practical advice also concerned the text itself: write clearly, do not overstate your own contribution, honestly acknowledge the limitations, remember that shorter articles are read and cited more often, and let a finished manuscript “cool down” before rereading it with a critical eye. When choosing a journal, the professor stressed, what matters most is the fit between the article and the journal’s aims and audience: it is not always worth aiming only at the top outlets, and predatory journals should be avoided. The seminar concluded with a discussion of working with reviews: how to draw benefit from a rejection, how to prepare thoughtful responses to reviewers while avoiding both ingratiation and needless argument, and how to promote an already published article. For young researchers it was a rare opportunity to receive advice from an author with decades of experience in the leading journals in public administration.
The second half of the day was spent at VDNH. In the Smart City pavilion, the participants explored public digital platforms and urban service ecosystems: they saw the digital twin of Moscow, updated in real time and helping to plan construction and urban projects, tested biometric fare payment, and learned how the “Our City” portal works, through which residents report urban problems straight from their phones. Beyond the Smart City pavilion, the participants also visited the flagship public services center at VDNH, the Palace of Public Services, where more than three hundred public services are provided in a one-stop-shop format. Here an interactive museum of the civil service has been created, which became a true highlight of the day: interactive presentations traced the evolution of the process of preparing state documents from the early Middle Ages through the centuries to the Soviet and modern periods, while the exhibition showed the participants samples of state documents of different eras, civil servants’ uniforms of different periods, and office equipment of different years. A vivid reminder that the digital state is merely the newest chapter in the centuries-long history of the civil service.
Day Three. A Cyber Range, the Secrets of Cryptography, and the Ecology of Data
The third day was the richest in site visits. At Cyberdom, the participants immersed themselves in the issues of cybersecurity, sovereignty, and the protection of digital infrastructure. The exhibition is built around scale models of real facilities for which ensuring cybersecurity is critically important, and the participants worked through attack-prevention scenarios for such facilities in a game format. A real discovery was Cyberdom’s operating cyber range: a venue where leading Russian and international information security teams hold exercises and competitions. The visit ended with a tour of the coworking space decorated in à la russe style, where the technological environment blends unexpectedly harmoniously with national character.
The theme continued at the Museum of Cryptography, where the participants traveled a path spanning millennia and saw for themselves how deep the roots of the science of information protection run. The exhibition told the story of languages as the first ways of encoding information, of steganography, which made it possible to conceal the very existence of a message, of the legendary Enigma and the dramatic story of how it was broken, of the Soviet encryption theorists, and of Claude Shannon, who laid the mathematical foundation of modern cryptography. A separate section was devoted to modern methods of encryption and cybersecurity, which protect messengers, bank cards, and mobile communications every day. For future researchers of the digital state, it was an important lesson: trust in digital services rests on a centuries-long history of the struggle for information security.
The culmination of the day was a lecture by Mikhail Ushakov, Deputy Head of the Moscow Department of Environmental Management and Protection, on ecology and public administration, drawing on the practice of the Moscow Government. The participants learned how digital tools make it possible to work proactively and to move from classical inspections to predictive control: the Department analyzes big data, having already processed a trillion measurements collected over 27 years, monitors environmental indicators around the clock through a sensor network, watches industrial zones with the help of machine vision, and forecasts landslide activity on the basis of an automated system. The Department is open to cooperation and offers students internships with the opportunity to work with these technologies themselves. After the lecture, the participants strolled along the summer terrace with living plants and a view of Moscow City.
In the evening, a project workshop took place under the guidance of the Laboratory’s leading research fellows Anna Sanina, Aisylu Ataeva, and Evgeny Diskin: the participants formulated their problems, chose their directions, and set about developing their own solutions. The excitement ran so high that work on the projects continued deep into the night: the teams did not want to part until their ideas had taken clear shape.
Day Four. Skolkovo and China’s Digital Experience
The participants spent the fourth day at the Skolkovo Technopark, where the program was devoted to the future of the digital state and the transition from individual platforms to ecosystems of governance. The Technopark welcomed its guests with new approaches to workplace organization: open spaces, flexible zones for teamwork, and an environment designed for the birth of ideas. The participants were shown the developments of Skolkovo residents in a wide range of fields, and a particularly strong impression was made by the laboratory of SIBUR, where innovative materials and technologies are created, above all the newest polymers used across the most varied branches of industry, from light to heavy. For the School’s participants, it was a convincing example of how research infrastructure turns scientific results into products for the real economy.
In the evening on Myasnitskaya, Professor Tao Chen delivered the lecture “Digital Transformation of China and Pathways for Smart Governance Cooperation with Russia”: China’s path from the first informatization programs to the Digital China strategy, the achievements of Chinese artificial intelligence and the open-source models that the PRC offers to the international community, the impressive scale of e-commerce, and the prospects for Russian-Chinese cooperation in the digital sphere, in which resource supplies, logistics, and growing mutual tourist flows are accompanied by cross-border data flows and require compatible digital solutions of the two countries.
Day Five. Project Defense, the Vcifre (InDigital) Game, and the Closing Ceremony
The final day took place at the HSE University building on Pokrovsky Boulevard. The morning was devoted to preparation, and then the defense of the Summer School projects took place. Despite the limited time available for development, the participants presented genuinely interesting solutions that deserve attention, in fields such as improving digital urban infrastructure, strengthening cybersecurity, road traffic safety, and youth employment. All the works rested on the principles of digital transformation and on the knowledge gained in the lectures and site visits, and received high praise from the lecturers, including the international professors. The best project was the one by the participants from the Republic of Bashkortostan, Alsu Ulyaeva and Anna Klimentyeva, devoted to a safe route for children who walk home from school every day. The project was judged so thoroughly designed that it can actually be implemented in practice.
After lunch, Anna Sanina and Aisylu Ataeva presented the educational game Vcifre (InDigital) developed by the Laboratory. It is a truly innovative, deep, and challenging project, capable of raising the level of knowledge about digital transformation even among professionals in the field. At the same time, the game wins players over with its beautiful interface and multitude of gameplay options and engages them completely: it was hard to tear oneself away from the levels, for participants and lecturers alike. Professor Tao Chen also joined the testing: he completed several game levels and shared detailed feedback with the developers, suggesting that the game be adapted for an international audience. The School concluded with the official closing ceremony and the presentation of certificates to the participants.
Participants’ Feedback
The Summer School participants, including the international ones, left a great number of reviews highly praising the lecture and project sessions and expressed their interest in continuing cooperation and studies at HSE University. Alsu Ulyaeva, Director of the Digital Development Department of the Academy under the Head of the Republic of Bashkortostan, shared her impressions:
“For me, taking part in the Summer School was an opportunity to look at the development of the digital state with fresh eyes. I was particularly interested in the questions of digital trust: its emotional and cognitive foundations and the influence of citizens’ satisfaction with digital services on the legitimacy of state power. The academic environment of HSE University made it possible to gain a deeper understanding of modern approaches to digital public administration and to obtain practical ideas that can be successfully integrated into educational activities. We look forward to further fruitful cooperation with HSE University and intend to develop joint projects.”
