Dear Colleagues,

Distributed ledgers such as blockchains are distributed databases where information is shared and synchronized in a peer-to-peer fashion across all participants, thus avoiding the need of a trusted party with privileges in the management of information. Distributed ledger technology has come to the attention of the public through one application which has had enormous success, namely cryptocurrencies which, starting with Bitcoin and following with numerous others, are revolutionizing the economy by eliminating trustees and other kinds of supervisors responsible for the correct circulation of money. This initial application was then extended to the more general area of smart contracts, with platforms such as Ethereum, which support the automation of complex contractual relationships among distributed, heterogeneous parties. Until now, the applications of smart contracts have remained substantially within the realm of digital currencies, for instance with the creation of personalized coins in the form of tokens capable of giving the initial input of monetary energy needed to bootstrap an ecosystem of innovative and distributed organizations, as is the case with the so called "initial coin offerings".

Smart contracts and distributed ledgers promise, however, to be very effective even in other areas of general interest, such as public administration, health, and education. Specifically, distributed ledgers can make public administrations fully transparent, thus avoiding opacity and corruption in the management of resources contributed by taxpayers; and smart contracts can automate and synchronize administrative processes, thus curbing inefficiencies, delays, and bottlenecks. Healthcare could be radically improved through access to a common database of health information shared across the variety of adopted electronic medical systems, leading to greater security and privacy, less administrative burden for both doctors and patients, and optimal diffusion of search results which could facilitate better drugs and therapies. Education can be made more widespread and effective through the sharing of educational resources, and people's profiles can be certified on the basis of their educational and professional career with maximum transparency and visibility.

We call for contributions on the application of distributed ledgers and smart contracts in the areas of public administration, government, education, and health care, including but not restricted to the following specific topics:

• Distributed ledgers for e-government
• Distributed workflow management for public administrations with smart contracts
• Distributed ledgers for digital identities
• Distributed ledgers for environmental safety
• Distributed ledgers for service development in developing countries
• Distributed ledgers for land registration
• Distributed ledgers for healthcare management
• Distributed ledgers for the support of clinical research
• Distributed ledgers for genomic data banks
• Distributed ledgers for the certification of skills and competencies
• Distributed ledgers for tracking intellectual property
• Smart contracts for a distributed marketplace of competencies

Prof. Dr. Remo Pareschi
Guest Editor

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• distributed ledger
• blockchain
• smart contract
• government
• public administration
• healthcare
• clinical research
• education
• certification