The EGOV Conference Series intends to assess the state of the art in e-Gove- ment and to provide guidance for research and development in this fast-moving ?eld. The annual conferences bring together leading research experts and p- fessionals from all over the globe. Thus, EGOV 2003 in Prague built on the achievements of the 1st EGOV Conference (Aix-en-Provence, 2002), which p- vided an illustrative overview of e-Government activities. This year the interest even increased: nearly 100 contributions, and authors coming from 34 countries. In this way EGOV Conference 2003 was a reunion for professionals from all over the globe. EGOV 2003 brought some changes in the outline and structure of the c- ference. In line with the broadening of the ?eld and a growing number of s- missions it became necessary to decentralize the reviewing process. So reviewing was done via stream chairs who deserve high praise for their dedicated work. In addition, a workshop part was included to cover some subjects of emerging signi?cance, such as dissemination, networking, and regional developments. F- ther, a subtitle of the conference was chosen that would mirror the expansion of e-Government to e-Governance. Consequently, in this year's conference gov- nance, democratic deliberation and legal issues occupied a growing share. Last, but not least, GIS was incorporated as a topic due to the increasing importance of geographical information systems for planning and operations.

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