Excellence in six years

Source: Resource, 10:9 - 29 October 2015

Six years ago, the Public Administration chair group was given a poor rating by the international Peer Review committee. This year it is deemed excellent. What is the secret? Professor Katrien Termeer explains.

‘The last time we were assessed we were only three years old. We had some research ideas but we didn’t have much to show for them. So we got a 3 for quality of research and for relevance to society. The group was disappointed for a few days but then the young researchers said, come on, next time we’ll be excellent. And that resolution has been achieved.

We started publishing more strategically, only in journals with a high impact factor. We managed to get published both in the key journals for public administration and in the interdisciplinary journals in the field of food and climate. So we started making a contribution in both worlds. We also made sure we set up our projects in dialogue with policymakers and the business world, so that relevance to society was built into the project.

It was crucial too that the group arrived at a shared theoretical narrative. Six years ago members of staff all had their own theories about public administration. Now we have a shared theoretical model showing the criteria which governance has to meet on the issues which we study. That is a tremendous help because we now work together on a shared narrative.’

See below the links to the complete review and our self-evaluation report:

Score Public Administration and Policy Group

Self-evaluation report Public Administration and Policy Group