The Institute of Public Administration is looking for a Professor of Public Policy, with a focus on Innovation and Sustainability, to strengthen its expertise in these areas. It is essential for the analysis of these societal problems as well as their potential solutions. Within the area of sustainability, on which the Institute collaborates with others at Leiden University, we wish to strengthen our expertise in governance of sustainability and the university-wide collaboration in the Livable Planet program.
The ambition of this chair is to conduct transdisciplinary research on the transition towards a society that uses its natural and social resources in a sustainable way. The grand societal challenges of this time almost always have a technological component, leading to high interdependence between technical and governance questions and insights. Based on this interdependency, it is particularly important to further develop governance approaches, which are essential to foster the required change in a system that is characterized by the absence of dominant coalitions and differences in framing. This chair examines those governance approaches, which enable a transition towards a more sustainable world.
Within this context, the following major themes may define research and teaching of this chair:
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Policy making on sustainability in a complex socio-technical environment: A focus on sustainability challenges as a wicked policy problem. How does the complexity of sustainability problems affect the design of the policy process and its underlying notions? How does it affect the development of policy? And to what extent do insights from policy evaluation help in further developing existing policy?
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Exploring the transnational nature of strengthening sustainable development: A focus on sustainability from a transnational perspective in which sustainability issues are addressed at different levels of governance across different national and international jurisdictions. To what extent are existing transnational modes of governance successful in addressing sustainability and how can we improve the transnational management and governance of sustainability?
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Transdisciplinary capabilities to support sustainable development: A focus on skills and governance capabilities within a transdisciplinary context. Which new (policy) actors, technologies, and interaction capabilities are needed to address (potential) value conflicts within multi-actor constellations of different sectors and countries?
In all these themes, the main feature is the
interaction between the complexity of sustainability problems and the innovation of the governing arrangements. In this respect, governance of sustainability builds on and strengthens the existing Research Program of the Institute of Public Administration (
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/governance-and-global-affairs/ins