Questions to answer:
What are your research interests?
My research focuses on citizen-state encounters, situations in which citizens engage with the state directly (e.g., via caseworkers) or indirectly (e.g., via digital platforms). Here, it’s especially the citi-zens’ perspective I find intriguing. We know that such encounters almost always impose costs and administrative burden on the citizens (e.g., finding information on services, providing information to receive services, follow compliance requirements) which can have severe impact on the equity and effectiveness of our welfare system. People vary substantially in how well they can overcome these burdens. My main focus lies on the required competences to ‘navigate the system’ which I refer to as administrative literacy. How do people differ on these skills and knowledge? Why do they differ? How can we adjust and thus improve public services so that we account for such differences? Fully digitalized services do not necessarily solve these issues, but sometimes even exacerbate them, thus my second research focus on the role of digitalization in public organizations.
How did you become interested in your field of research?
Early in my PhD, I was intrigued by the seminal work of Michael Lipsky on street-level bureaucrats, those public employees that are crucial for interacting with the public and, thus, the implementation of policies. However, I found that citizens were often seen as a more or less passive and homoge-nous group. It was especially this lack of the citizens’ perspective that piqued my curiosity. Simulta-neously, the field of public administration experienced a (re-)discovery of psychological theories and methods with the ‘behavioral public administration movement’. Eventually, while working for the German Federal Ministry of Health, I discovered the concept of health literacy emphasizing the im-portance of patients’ skills and knowledge of the health system for public health outcomes. Thus, multi-disciplinarity has always been close to the heart of my research. • What research question would you above all like to find the answer to? And why is that? • How does administrative literacy affect people's ability to access the public services? And how can we use this to decrease discrimination and exclusion, increase policy take-up and overall improve public services? I am convinced that these are fundamental challenges to which administrative liter-acy can provide new insights and solutions.
What impact do you expect the Talent Track will have on your career and your research field?
The Talent Track enables me to dedicate myself to top-level applications for nationally (Carlsberg Sapere Aude) and internationally (ERC Starting Grant) renowned funding programs. Hence, I will be able to attract necessary funding for my overarching vision, conduct top-quality research, and help develop practical solutions to everyday challenges in the public sector. Furthermore, I will be able to improve my network and support my goals to establish a research agenda in public administration and political science research.
Which impact do you expect your research to have on the surrounding society?
My work will potentially affect how we provide services in public organizations. It will affect how public employees engage with citizens, how they will prioritize their resources to support and help those that are most in need. It will affect how policies are communicated to the public in a more tar-geted way. It will increase the success of policies and reduce exclusion.
For inspiration, see Q&A with some of the other Excellence Fellows here.