The areas and opportunities for exploration in government IT research are abundant and complex. The overall efficiency and effectiveness of government IT research depends upon the fit of research to practice and the effectiveness of the transfer of results as well as the degree to which the research conducted is complementary and comprehensive. An overall research agenda that focuses on a few of the links described above, but ignores the others, may fall short in terms of effectively addressing the complexity of issues associated with government IT innovation. Therefore an efficient and effective overall research agenda should have the following characteristics:

• An appropriate fit between research and practice
• Complementary and non-redundant efforts
• Comprehensiveness in range of technology, management and policy issues
• An effective transfer of results

Further, the usefulness of research depends upon its timeliness. Given the rapidly changing technological and political environments in which government IT research is conducted, it is often difficult to identify, conduct, and transfer the results of research so that it meets the needs of practitioners in the time frame in which the problems need to be solved.