A mixture of government agencies, international governmental organizations, private industry, think tanks, and non-governmental organizations have sponsored significant programs of international digital government research. (As noted above, many of these same organizations also conduct some of the work directly.)

Global intergovernmental organizations usually sponsor global studies encompassing most or all countries. Occasionally, they concentrate on a specific group of countries, usually defined by their common level of economic development. Most of these studies concentrate on developing countries with the aim to promote economic and social development. These organizations sponsor research that appears to concentrate on two main issues – economic development and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of governance through the use of IT.

This trend is especially dominant with organizations that have economic development as one of their overarching organizational goals, such as the World Bank. The United Nations, although interested in IT in connection with its potential to spur economic development, also collects data on general IT indicators, such as the level of access, digital divide issues, and others. Research sponsored by these global intergovernmental organizations often takes the form of benchmarks, although they sometimes include best practices or case studies that are geared toward their missions.

Given their global membership, they seldom tackle politically-charged issues, such as democratization. Most studies sponsored by global intergovernmental organizations are done in-house by their own research staff, or in connection with another large organization.

Among regional intergovernmental research sponsors, the European Commission deserves special mention. Through its Directorates General for Research and Information Society and Media, it sponsors a large number of international e-government projects, concentrating mostly on EU member states, sometimes in comparison with other developed countries or other countries of similar IT development level. The sponsored studies range from internal benchmarks to transnational studies, to IT development projects, to best practices, and others.

Although diverse in topic and approach, these projects all address in some way the overarching themes of European unification, including improving government functions through the use of IT, establishing EU-wide standards, supporting internal barrier free commerce, establishing pan-European services, and generally supporting a knowledge society. Projects are generally awarded to teams of multiple partners from various countries and different disciplines, often combining private companies with academic institutions, and often with the explicit goal of product development and deployment. The awards are usually large (several million Euros), but less than two years in length. Most include goals for deployment of new products or services.

Government research organizations fund mainly academic scientific research, although there are some significant variations among countries. For example, the US NSF funds university research to advance all aspects of science and engineering, except medical science. NSF grants are awarded through a peer review process and grants carry no requirement for product development or practical deployment (although these are considered desirable extended outcomes of the science). In comparison, the EC funds not only university-based researchers, but often funds work by private companies and public-private teams. Other national research agencies, such as the UK agency for Economic and Social Research, seem to have a focus similar to the US NSF, funding mainly university-based research.

Global companies, such as SAP, also occasionally sponsor research programs or projects. IBM’s Endowment for the Business of Government, for example, makes modest grants to academic researchers to conduct smaller studies and publishes white papers to help inform government practitioners on a variety of topics, some of which have international themes.