¹û¶³Ó°Ôº

Professor in Public Management
Room: 1.02, 31 Tavistock Square
·¡³¾²¹¾±±ô:Ìýc.schuster@ucl.ac.uk

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Biography

I am a Professor in Public Management in the ¹û¶³Ó°ÔºÌýDepartment of Political ScienceÌýand Academic Co-Director of the ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Policy Lab.

My core research interest is in dataÌýanalytics and civil service management: using data from original surveys, administrative records and field experiments for more evidence-based management of public servants. I frequently collaborate with governments and international organizations – such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank – in this research, and my research has led a range of government organizations to change and improve management practices.

My work has been published in over 70 publications with, among others, theÌýJournal of Public Administration Research and Theory,ÌýPublic Administration Review, Public Administration,ÌýInternational Public Management Journal, Governance,ÌýRegulation &ÌýGovernance,ÌýWorld Development, Comparative Political Studies, theÌýEuropean Journal of Political Research, the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and several national governments. It has received over £1.5m in grant funding from research funding bodies and international organisations, and has won the 2018 Haldane Prize for the best article published inÌýPublic Administration. My latest books are The Government Analytics Handbook: Leveraging Data to Strengthen Public Administration (World BankÌý2023, co-edited with Dan Rogger) ÌýandÌýMotivating Public EmployeesÌý(Cambridge University Press 2019,Ìýco-authored withÌýMarc Esteve).

Previously, I was an Associate Professor and an Assistant Professor in the ¹û¶³Ó°ÔºÌýDepartment of Political Science, a Visiting Scholar atÌýSciences Po,Ìýthe LSE Fellow in Political Science and Public Policy at theÌýLondon School of Economics and Political ScienceÌý(LSE),Ìýa Visiting Research Scholar in theÌýResearch Department ofÌýthe Inter-American Development BankÌý(IDB), and an Economist with theÌýWorld Bank. I received my PhD inÌýGovernmentÌýfrom LSE.

Research

My current and recent research projects on people analytics and people management in government include:

• ‘The Global Survey of Public Servants’ – a joint initiative with colleagues from the World Bank Bureaucracy Lab, the Stanford Governance Project (led by Francis Fukuyama), as well as Jan-Meyer Sahling (Nottingham) and Kim Mikkelsen (Roskilde) to undertake the world’s largest cross-country survey of civil servants and encourage governments to adopt civil service surveys as management instruments.
• ‘Training Executives to Enhance Employee Engagement in Government: Field Experimental Evidence from Luxembourg’ (2022-2025) – a GBP640,000 ESCR-FNR-funded project (with Ludivine Martin, Jan Meyer-Sahling and Kim Mikkelsen) to assess in a field experiment whether executive engagement training enhances employee engagement in government.
• ‘Making Civil Services Work in Developing Countries’ (2016-2018) – a GBP400,000 British Academy-UK DFID funded project (co-led with Jan Meyer Sahling) to understand the effects of management practices on the attitudes and behaviors of public servants in developing countries.Ìý.
• ‘Do Ethics Trainings Enhance Integrity in Government?’ (2019-2021) – a GBP350,000 Global Integrity-UK DFID-funded project (co-led with Jan Meyer Sahling and Kim Mikkelsen) to assess with a multi-country field experiment whether ethics trainings of public servants enhance integrity in government.
• ‘Management Practices in National Statistical Offices in Latin America’ (2019-2021) – an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)-funded project (with Jose Antonio Mejia, Jan Meyer-Sahling and Kim Mikkelsen) to survey public officials in National Statistical Offices (NSOs) across Latin America and the Caribbean to better understand management practices and their effectiveness in NSOs.

Publications

For a list of my publications, please visit my website’s and sections, or my .

Teaching

I teach principally within theÌýMPA in Public Administration and Management. My teaching responsibilities typically include ‘Governance and Public Management’ (MPA core course) and ‘Policy Advice’ (MPA elective). I have won ¹û¶³Ó°Ôºâ€™s Education Award for Outstanding Contributions to Education at ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº as well as theÌýSchool of Public Policy’s Departmental Teaching Prize for Outstanding TeachingÌýfor my course teaching and work as the Department’s Director of Education (2017-20).

I welcome expressions of interest from potential PhD students in the areas of civil service management and/or (anti-)corruption in government, with a preference for quantitative dissertations. I am particularly keen to hear from potential PhD students interested in people analytics in government.