Digihumaus report 2025:  
Digitalisation as a common good in public administration

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Introduction

The Digihumaus report of 2025 approaches the digitalisation of public administration and public digital infrastructure through three themes: interdependence, systemic perspective and complexity.  

These themes allow us to examine the trend of increasingly complex problems, one of the five change trends outlined by the Digital and Population Data Services Agency. This trend reflects many societal changes that intersect all trends. We also present how digital infrastructure can support the development of digitalisation and reinforce societal trust.  

Future trends defined by the Digital and Population Data Services Agency: problems will become more complex, digitalisation is everywhere, the population is ageing and diversifying, the relationship between the environment and the economy is changing, and the security environment is becoming more complex. These trends are closely intertwined and affect our future. The interrelationships between change trends change over time. As one trend is highlighted, another may fade into the background and become more prominent again after a while.

Interdependence as a resource 

We live in a very interdependent world. Interdependence means that even small choices can have major impacts in other places. That is why, for some of the challenges of our time, the scale is planetary. In an uncertain world, interdependence can be both a blessing and a curse. We should be more careful in assessing and accounting for interdependence to understand its impacts. The more actors are involved in cooperation, the more issues there are to take into account and reconcile.  

In broad strokes, the opposite of interdependence in the digital world is sovereignty: by emphasising interdependence, we improve cooperation, and by focusing on sovereignty, we improve operational reliability. For example, efficiently transferring customer data between actors enables highly usable digital services, but at the same time, such services may be vulnerable if the flow of data becomes compromised for any reason. The interdependence of digital systems in public administration makes them more impactful, but we have to find an appropriate balance between dependencies and investments in each situation. In the long run, administrative actors must find the right balance for interdependence and centralised services in terms of costs, benefits and risks. 

When it comes to public administration, we cannot mention interdependence without considering administrative structures. The division of tasks between agencies and other actors and their structures matter when developing more flexible operating methods based on digitalisation. When developing administration, these structures should be examined in relation to how well they help solve the phenomena of our complex world. The examination of structures also reveals how much or how little there are differences between various actors. Based on the observations made, structures will have to be reformed as necessary. 

Interdependence can be seen and perceived as a strength or weakness; it depends on how much people trust institutions and their fellow citizens, among other things. Finland and other Nordic countries aim to foster societal trust. However, maintaining that trust in the future cannot rely on past solutions alone. Losing trust is easy, and maintaining and reinforcing it in a free society requires continuous efforts. Decision-makers, public officials and other societal influencers should strive to reinforce and create trust with their words and actions. 

 What does interdependence mean for digital infrastructure? 

  • When building digital solutions, public administration has to be increasingly aware of the interdependence of systems and determine an appropriate level of dependencies. 
  • For interdependence to be a resource, good practices and information need to be shared and used. In addition, the development of cooperation between interdependent actors has to be purposeful.
  • Preparing for uncertainty forces us to learn from other actors and from previous measures – including errors and failures.  

A complex world cannot be understood without a systemic approach 

In a complex world, problems are multidimensional and sometimes unexpected. For public administration, one important tool is systems thinking. It is the perspective that large systems consisting of several interconnected components are more than the sum of their parts. A characteristic of such systems is that the relationships between their components are difficult to understand. However, a systemic approach encourages us to identify and interpret these relationships. 

Public administration itself is an excellent example of a large system. It consists of a vast number of different actors, ranging from ministries to agencies and from municipalities to wellbeing services counties. Its activities ultimately reach all citizens through various services. In the systematic development of public administration, it is important to identify the right level and place for optimising different components and operations.  In complex matters, planning and development should not be rushed, so that we can ensure that measures are sustainable and at an appropriate scale.  

According to systems thinking, solving problems requires situational pictures that are as multifaceted as possible, allowing us to interpret problems and their solutions from the perspective of the entire system. That is why it is important for proactive administration to reinforce internal dialogue and strategic stakeholder work. This way, planning and development measures can be scaled to a reasonable and manageable size, and the systemic impacts of planned changes can be better identified. It is important to understand which actors are needed to solve each problem at hand.  

In an increasingly complex world, forming a situational picture requires access to versatile information. Accumulating that information involves various methods, such as research, service design, customer orientation, inclusion and expertise by experience. Still, it should be noted that the era of open data has come to an end. Going forward, we have to be more careful of sharing information completely openly; some information should only be shared between identified actors. 

Why should public administration look at the world with a systemic approach? 

  • Digitalisation and an increased focus on data generate more options and connections in the systemic world, while global politics are becoming more uncertain. We should be more careful with prioritisation and the choices we make. The one and the same operating model will not suit all situations. 

  • Without a systemic perspective, the relationships, connections and uncertainties of complex problems get overlooked. 

  • Public officials must be able to form a systemic perspective to support political decision-making. Decision-making will have to increasingly operate on a time frame that exceeds individuals’ terms in office. 

Digital infrastructure for resilience and a common good

As problems grow more complex, decisions will always involve some uncertainty, even the seemingly surefire ones. To offset this uncertainty, the entire public administration system needs resilience: adaptability, situational awareness and the ability to manage crises and renew. Resilience includes protection against disruptions, responding to crises and learning from crises and changes.  

The administration needs something shared and adaptable to be the cornerstone of resilience, seeing as problems do not abide by organisational boundaries. A systemic approach to the complexity of problems requires joint interpretation of information and common structures and tools. A functioning public infrastructure is part of the foundation of a networked and diverse public administration that engages in systemic thinking and utilises different types of information.  

Digital infrastructure includes the so-called hard infrastructure, such as data networks, data transfer cables and data centres, as well as the soft infrastructure, such as base registers, Suomi.fi services, means of data transfer, and shared operating methods that promote the digital transition. 

Digital infrastructure creates resilience and dispels complexity in two ways. Hard infrastructure guarantees the security and reliability of public digital services. Our increasingly unpredictable geopolitical situation makes digital security of supply even more important.  

On the other hand, public administration can lean on soft and shared digital infrastructure to build real-time, well-working and human-centred services, eliminating the need to develop each component separately. When services are comprehensible, easy to use and felt to be secure, it strengthens trust between different actors. Shared practices that cross administrative boundaries and involve interactive approaches, combined with future-oriented experiments, are used to secure the benefits of the entire digital transition.  

However, resilient infrastructure necessitates the ability to assess which services have to be centrally managed or shared and which do not. Similarly, it must be assessed which shared administrative practices need to be binding and which ones can be recommendations that allow deviations if necessary.  

In an uncertain world, it is impossible to design perfect solutions, services and systems that cover all use cases. Digital solutions that are “good enough” support everyday resilience by serving the large majority digitally, making it possible to guarantee an alternative option for people who cannot use digital services. In fact, when building public digital infrastructure, we have to be aware of different value judgements and alternative costs. 

How does complexity affect digital infrastructure? 

  • Even though problems are becoming more complex overall, it is fortunately not true for every case. There are still problems in the world with simple and sustainable solutions. 

  • However, it is impossible to use simple solutions to eliminate any complicated, complex or chaotic aspects of our world. Relying on overly simple options can discourage the identification of more complex problems, asking the right questions and finding the right solutions. 


The utilisation and maintenance of digital infrastructure support the basic functions of everyday life and society.      

Proposed measures 

To summarise this report, we propose three solutions to alleviate the complexity of problems and enable the utilisation of digital infrastructure.   

 

1. Maintenance of digital infrastructure

When resources are scarce, it is necessary to opt for shared and joint solutions. Public digital infrastructures are a common good of public administration. Still, even digital infrastructures, their building blocks and services require maintenance, upgrades and repairs, just like other more traditional infrastructure. Continuous maintenance also prevents an expensive backlog of repairs. If the maintenance of digital infrastructure is neglected, it can lead to data protection issues or broken services. Continuous maintenance and modernisation of existing services can also pay for itself within a reasonable time frame, unlike building completely new services with uncertain benefits. 

2. Towards targeted public administration networks  

Our complex world and its problems require public administration to engage in different kinds of cooperation across sectoral boundaries.  Official authorities need to improve their ability to operate in a systemic manner by investing in different cross-organisational operating methods and developing indicators for their success. However, such networks should be constructed with care and precision for a specific purpose, lest the cooperation fail due to its inherent complexity. There needs to be more cooperation within public administration but fewer operating methods that make the organisation of public services rigid. 
 
3. Proactive influencing in the EU 

The largest societal issues concerning digitalisation will be resolved at the EU level. While digitalisation is accelerating in all EU Member States, the Finnish and Nordic model of digitalisation, based on trust and base registers, is still exceptional in the EU. When influencing digital issues in the EU, we must ensure that regulation does not excessively restrict national room for manoeuvre, burden our digital infrastructure inappropriately or interfere with the national principle of the interoperability of base registers.  

Sources 

  • Digital and Population Data Services Agency (2024): Weak threats and strong opportunities for digitalisation 2024. 
  • Digital and Population Data Services Agency (2024): Weak threats and strong opportunities for digitalisation 2023.  
  • Mulgan, Geoff (2024): Generative Shared Intelligence: A direction for governments in the uncertain environments of the late 2020s. Demos Helsinki. 
  • Uusikylä, Petri & Jalonen, Harri (2023): Epävarmuuden aika: Kuinka ymmärtää systeemistä muutosta? (A time of uncertainty: How to understand systemic change?) Into. 
  • Valtiolla.fi (2024): Resilienssi – navigointia myrskyävässä maailmassa. (Resilience – navigating a stormy world.)  
  • Government of Finland (2022): Government report: Digital Compass. Publications of the Finnish Government 2022:65. 
  • Tikka, Minttu; Härmä, Vuokko; Häsä, Jokke & Tammi, Tuukka (2024): Informaatiohyvinvointia etsimässä. Demokratia, osallisuus ja hyvinvointi digitaalisessa informaatioympäristössä. Työpaperi 68/2024, Terveyden ja hyvinvoinnin laitos.