P19 Public Service Institutions as Human Infrastructure

Panel Chairs

Corresponding and Review group chair Co-Chair

• Lorenza Querini (PhD Candidate), Politecnico di Milano, Italy. Corresponding Chair. lorenza.querini@polimi.it

Co-Chair(s)

• André Carlos Busanelli de Aquino (Full Professor), University of Sao Paulo, Brasil. 
• Rubens Pauluzzo (Associate Professor), University of Udine, Italy. 
• Alessandro Francesco Sinatra (Post-doc Researcher), University of Catania, Italy. 
• Yueer Chai (PhD Researcher), Peking University, China. 

Reviewers and Panel Members

• Isabella Dabaja (Lecturer), University of Sydney, Australia. Reviewer. 
• Evy Saputri (PhD Researcher), University of Vaasa, Finland. Reviewer. 
• Reygana Shade (PhD Student), University of Cape Town, South Africa. Reviewer. 
• Sara Passmore (PhD Student), Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Reviewer. 

Description and Relevance of the Panel Topic - Summary

Public service institutions, such as universities, museums, libraries, archives, hospitals, and social service providers, including immigration and integration service providers, are facing increasing and overlapping challenges, while they are expected to continue providing services, generate public value, and maintain users’ trust (Dudau et al., 2023; Selviaridis et al., 2023). Digital transformation, the risks associated with AI, cybersecurity threats, climate change, resources’ scarcity, erosion of social cohesion, and geopolitical instability are some of the challenges comprising an evolving polycrisis (Fusi et al., 2025; Phillips et al., 2023; World Economic Forum, 2023). In this context, these organizations need not only to innovate their service delivery but also to sustain the human relationships, accessibility, and inclusive spaces through which communities develop the capacity to navigate disruption (Larsen & Følstad, 2024; Menter, 2024). They contribute to safeguarding citizens by providing safe spaces for people to reconnect with one another and protecting their democratic rights (Brandão et al., 2023). They are expected to maintain citizens’ trust in local political and social structures, becoming a critical component of societal resilience during polycrisis (Pica et al., 2026).

Thus, this panel conceptualizes public service institutions as human infrastructures (Nemer & Sobral, 2026): community-related and locally embedded organizations (also defined as “anchors”) whose relational, organizational, and place-based capacities enable communities not only to access public services, but also to sustain trust, social connection, democratic participation, and resilience during periods of disruption (Birch et al., 2013; Henderson & McWilliams, 2017; Virtanen & Jalonen, 2024). The panel aims to explore how these institutions navigate tensions emerging from complex contemporary scenarios, balancing innovation and technology adoption with preserving human interactions and relationships with users (Do Khac & Leyer, 2026). Nonetheless, it also welcomes critical perspectives examining the limits and unequal effects of public service institutions' role as human infrastructures, including trade-offs between efficiency and relationality, security and openness, technological innovation and inclusion, and organizational resilience and workforce sustainability.

Topics and Research Questions

The panel invites submissions on the following (non-exclusive) topics:

• Public service institutions as human infrastructures and community anchors: their role in creating public value, common capabilities, trust, social cohesion, and societal resilience in times of polycrisis.
• Institutional and organizational capacity in response to polycrisis: how public service institutions anticipate, adapt to, and recover from overlapping crises, resource scarcity, and societal transformations.
• Digital transformation, AI adoption, and human interaction in public service delivery: relations and potential tensions between technological innovation / automation and human interactions / user experience.
• Citizen engagement, co-creation, and digital inclusion: participation in service redesign, accessibility, digital inequalities, and the inclusion of vulnerable or marginalized communities.
• Public service work and evolving professional capabilities: changing roles, skills, discretion, motivation, emotional and relational labor, and the implications of technological and organizational transformation for public service workers.
• Collaborative and polycentric governance for community resilience: partnerships and coordination among public institutions, governments, civil society, communities, and other local actors in addressing grand challenges.
• Safety, security, and democratic values in public service delivery: cybersecurity, information security, safe public spaces, accountability, digitally supported decision-making, privacy, legitimacy, and transparency.
• Place-based public value and long-term community transformation: how universities, libraries, museums, hospitals, social service providers, employment agencies, cultural institutions, and other anchor institutions create cultural, social, and relational spaces, shape local ecosystems, and foster relationships and community capabilities that persist and evolve over time, potentially beyond the institutions’ direct presence.

Possible research questions include (but are not limited to):

• How do public service institutions function as “anchors” for long-term societal change, creating public value and common capabilities, such as trust, economic impact, and community resilience?
• How do they build institutional capacity to respond to polycrisis while preserving public trust and democratic values?
• How are organizational practices, governance arrangements, and public service workers’ roles evolving in response to contemporary interconnected challenges?
• What role do human interactions continue to play in public service delivery during digital transformation?
• How can public service institutions foster meaningful citizen engagement and digital inclusion when redesigning services during digital transformation?

Theoretical Frameworks and Methods

We invite emerging and established researchers to submit contributions aligned with relevant debates in public management and administration dealing with public value generation, societal resilience, the role of public service institutions in local communities, drawing from public value theory, institutional theory, administrative burden theory, digital governance, and service motivation frameworks, implementing qualitative methodologies (e.g. case studies, ethnographies, content analysis, qualitative comparative analysis), quantitative analysis (e.g. surveys, structural equation modelling, experiments), and mixed methods approaches.

The panel particularly welcomes contributions examining public service institutions such as universities, museums, hospitals, libraries, cultural organizations, employment agencies, and social service providers. It also welcomes studies exploring citizens’ engagement in public services’ redesign, the redevelopment of civil servants’ capabilities, digital inclusion, the implication of AI for citizens’ engagement, inter-organizational collaborations, and communities’ resilience.

Bringing together these perspectives, the panel aims to advance conversation on the role of public service institutions as key actors in the public sector’s effort to guarantee citizens’ safety and security by acting as community anchors in polycrisis.

Relevance to the Field of Public Management and the Conference Theme

The panel contributes to the IRSPM 2027 debate examining how public service institutions contribute to public value, societal resilience, and the maintenance of communities’ safety and security during polycrisis. While public management research has predominantly investigated how central government bodies respond to crises through policies’ issuing and organizational restructuring, less attention has been devoted to decentralized institutions as translators of central directives in local environments. These institutions are expected to guarantee essential services while preserving citizens’ democratic rights, users’ trust, and meaningful human relationships (Pica et al., 2026).

Universities, museums, libraries, social service providers, and other community-based institutions play a fundamental role as “human infrastructures”, meaning support systems based on human relationships that help address challenges related to digitization and the alienation that can result when services and operations become more automated (Buyannemekh et al., 2024). This includes creating safe spaces for interconnection and knowledge sharing. Especially as online and physical safety and security are strained by cyberattacks, geopolitical instability, and the erosion of democratic rights, these institutions offer environments where citizens can engage with public officials, express their opinions on the renovation of public services, and safely learn to use new technologies (Selviaridis et al., 2023).

Overall, the panel contributes to public management and administration research on how to foster safety, security, and resilient communities in a period of polycrisis, focusing on the local level of analysis by discussing how decentralized public service institutions can support societal resilience, sustain human interactions, and safeguard democratic rights during interconnected societal challenges.