Researchers from the Governance for Smartening Public-Private Partnerships research program were present at the EGPA conference in Utrecht (august 2016).
At the conference one of our researchers, José Nederhand, presented two papers on her current research. First, in the PhD Symposium Panel, José presented her work on how institutional logics shape the work of boundary spanners within local government. The paper: ‘Looking inside the box. What makes collaborative processes work?’ is co-written together with prof. Martijn van der Steen and prof. Mark van Twist. Besides this paper, she also presented a paper in a panel about ‘Civil Society, Citizens and Government’. Here she spoke about ‘Casting the role of citizens in Dutch welfare reforms: partners instead of customers?’ which is co-written by Dr. Ingmar van Meerkerk. This paper explores how Dutch national government frames the role of citizens in the delivery of welfare services and which meta-governance strategies are proposed in this respect. This work is relevant as in many Western countries, public service provision is subject to major reforms, but there is a lack of systematic insight into the way governments actually frame citizens’ roles and responsibilities in these reforms. For an earlier version of this paper she won the Osborn Best Paper Award in April 2016.