Qualitative data analysis of issue interrelations and interdependencies for e-government research planning

Abstract

Science and technology roadmapping is currently a popular method to develop long-term strategies for e-government. In the scope of the EC-co-funded research project eGovRTD2020, an innovative methodology has been developed, which combines scenarios and roadmapping to support long-term strategic policy-making for e-government research. This approach bases on systematically analyzing qualitative data throughout the whole roadmapping process based on individual issues and their interrelations. The paper explores the complex analysis of the network of relations and interdependencies between these issues. We introduce a concept for the systematic analysis of interlinks between single issues, which helps improving the quality of analysis and advances the consolidation of results to form well grounded strategic policy-making. A case example extracted from the project serves as proof of concept. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.