ADOPTION OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND CITIZEN ACCEPTANCE: A COMPARISON BETWEEN CROATIA AND SLOVENIA (BI-HR/25-27-033)
Head of the research group: prof. dr. Aleksander Aristovnik
Artificial intelligence is developing rapidly for use in public administration. By adopting artificial intelligence, public administration enhances its efficiency, accuracy, and service delivery while addressing ethical considerations and transparency to increase citizen trust. Furthermore, citizen acceptance is highly dependent on their understanding of artificial intelligence benefits, the safeguards against biases, and the protection of their personal data, which requires robust communication and education efforts from government bodies. However, there is little empirical evidence to assess these claims; therefore, a comprehensive examination across various systems, including those in Slovenia and Croatia, is urgently needed. Consequently, this research will contribute to understanding the successes and challenges faced by early adopters and emphasize the crucial role of citizen acceptance for the successful adoption of artificial intelligence in public administration.
The research will pursue two goals. The first is to compare how the adoption of artificial intelligence in public administration relates to citizens’ perceptions and attitudes in Slovenia and Croatia. The second goal is to network researchers and strengthen their cooperation in the field of artificial intelligence applications in public administration. The research will focus on the effectiveness of artificial intelligence adoption through the analysis of secondary data evaluating the performance of Slovenia and Croatia in relation to various indices (AI Readiness Index, DESI, Open Government Data Index, etc.) and analyses of citizen acceptance of artificial intelligence in public administration (Eurobarometer, etc.), complemented by analyses of prominent institutions in this field, such as the EU, OECD, World Bank, United Nations, etc. In addition, the adoption and acceptance of artificial intelligence can be further investigated through interviews and surveys in Slovenia and Croatia.
Duration (from/to):
from 1. 1. 2025 to 31. 12. 2026
Contracting Authority:
Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
Project Partner:
Institue of Economics, Zagreb (EIZ)
Financing:

Memebers of the research group:
Members of the research group in the partner country:
dr. Zoran Aralica
dr. Jelena Budak
Bruno Škrinjarić
Objectives of bilateral cooperation activities
The bilateral cooperation activity aims to help strengthen the knowledge of policy makers in Slovenia and Croatia. In addition, the bilateral cooperation activity includes important elements of scalability, as the results will provide a framework for further empirical studies that are transferable to an international context. The added value of the cooperation between researchers from Slovenia and Croatia is the exchange of specific knowledge and experience.
The main objectives of the cooperation are:
1) to combine the theoretical and empirical perspectives of the presented research topic;
2) to establish a basis for future cooperation on research projects; and
3) to strengthen/include cooperation between young and experienced researchers.
All the researchers involved in this bilateral cooperation activity are experts in their fields. The proposed research will contribute to the general literature with new theoretical and empirical evidence in a systematic and comprehensive way. The empirical analysis will be embedded in an in-depth theoretical and methodological background. The results of this research will contribute to academic and practical knowledge and will help researchers and practitioners in the field to conduct research in theory and practice. Complementarity will be exercised by combining theoretical and empirical questions. In addition, the bilateral cooperation activity is a good opportunity to involve young researchers in international cooperation, as both partners involve selected young PhD students or postdoctoral researchers in the research work. Students from both institutions will also benefit as both leaders of the bilateral cooperation activity plan to present the main results of the research during their guest lectures at the partner institutions. Joint presentations at selected international conferences are foreseen. The outcome of the cooperation should also be visible in the form of scientific articles published in some highly indexed (ISI) journals.