In the autumn of 2004, two higher educational programs in e-government will be starting up at Blekinge Institute of Technology in Southern Sweden. One of these is a Master’s level program, while the other is a more basic, two-year vocational education. Each will be the first of its kind in Scandinavia, and both will be offered as net-based distance education. The interdisciplinary group of researchers/teachers now developing the courses for these educational programs, in co-operation with several other research groups in Scandinavia, see this co-construction of distance education as the beginning of an active Scandinavian network of competence around higher education and ongoing research and development in the e-government area. We are currently exploring the possibilities of using distance education in this area as a way of networking around on-going e-government research and competence enhancement in Scandinavia. The Scandinavian tradition of Participatory Design, as well as ideas about e-government as constantly ongoing co-construction, have inspired us in our work with developing the new educational programs. A reference group consisting of representatives from a number of municipalities and various government agencies plays an important role in this work.