The School of Public Policy brings an interdisciplinary and global perspective to theoretical and applied research on contemporary public policy agendas. The School plays a leading role in opening new frontiers for academic research and in contributing to improved governance and management worldwide.
This research cluster engages with the global debate about new forms of public policy making and delivery that incorporate non-state actors – business and civil society organisations. This includes public-private partnerships, strategic service delivery partnerships, and contracting. The cluster has been active in examining the meanings and manifestations of ‘partnership’ in an international public management context, and in supporting the development of the new centre for Centre for Public Service Partnerships.
Contact: Dr Mike Hubbard (m.e.v.hubbard@bham.ac.uk)
The focus of this research cluster is the democratic aspects of public governance. Members of the cluster are exploring such issues as the way citizen and user engagement is reflected in the design of governance, methodologies for assessing the democratic performance of governance entities, and the application of different forms of discourse analysis to the debate about governance.
Contact: Prof Chris Skelcher (c.k.skelcher@bham.ac.uk)
This cluster is developing the School’s research on new ways for enabling the design and delivery of public services. It has a particular interest in analysing models for commissioning and procurement, and their application to neighbourhood and cross-boundary situations.
Contact: Bruce Walker (j.b.walker@bham.ac.uk)
The Leadership Research Cluster is developing a number of distinct research themes, not only to develop as research projects, but also to underpin the extensive leadership development programmes that are delivered by the School. In so doing, the cluster is developing links with other leadership research across the University, particularly with Birmingham Business School. The developing research themes include:
Contact: This cluster is chaired by Chris Mabey of Birmingham Business School, and members of the cluster are drawn from across the School's and include Andrew Coulson, Deborah Davidson, Helen Dickinson, Joan Durose, Tim Freeman, John Gibney, Edward Peck, Jonathan Shapiro, Annie Rubienska, Lisa Trickett (l.trickett@bham.ac.uk) and Carol Yapp. The Cluster has been given impetus by the appointment of Stuart Copeland as a Research Associate.
The cluster seeks to provide a stimulating academic environment for all staff and postgraduate research students in the School's and wider University who are engaged in, or committed to, ‘post-empiricist’ approaches to policy studies and evaluation. While labels come and go, the interpretive tradition has by now established itself in such a way as to inform a broad and growing community of scholars in fields such as public policy, organisational studies, political science, and public administration.
Influenced by the ‘interpretive turn’ in the social sciences during the latter half of the 20th century, interpretive policy analytic approaches draw on a broad spectrum of philosophical and analytic inquiries, among them phenomenology, hermeneutics, critical theory, discourse theory, symbolic interactionism, pragmatism and ethnomethodology, plus methods analysing discourse, rhetoric, frames, the fact-value distinction, categories, metaphors, and so on.
They offer an alternative to more positivistically - informed analytic tools such as survey research, regression and cost-benefit analyses.
The cluster seminar series is intended to draw together staff with an interest in developing critical / interpretive approaches from across the School's and wider University into a broader community of scholarship. As well as providing opportunities to build networks for future collaboration, seminars will offer a route for publication and dissemination of work, published as a peer-reviewed series of Birmingham Papers on interpretive policy analysis, and we are particularly interested to encourage participation by postgraduate research students
Contact: Dr Tim Freeman (t.freeman@bham.ac.uk), Dr Steven Griggs (s.f.griggs@bham.ac.uk), Kelly Teamey
The Centre for Governance, Security and the State (CGSS) brings together a multi-disciplinary team of researchers exploring the interface between, and aspects of, the state and state-building, governance and security, in order to build upon our understanding of this complex relationship. Our aim is to expand this relatively new and exciting field of knowledge through our ongoing research, publications, working paper series, seminars and conferences.
We define the focus of our research very broadly, as we do not believe that the state / state-building, governance or security can or should be seen in narrow definitional or disciplinary terms. These are complex areas for research that can be studied in a variety of contexts: in rich or poor countries; democracies or non-democracies; countries engaged in or emerging from conflict, as well as those that have known peace for a long time; at the local, national and international levels of analysis; and so on.
Contact: Dr Paul Jackson (p.b.jackson@bham.ac.uk), Dr Heather Marquette (h.a.marquette@bham.ac.uk), Anna Orrnert (a.m.orrnert@bham.ac.uk)
