Professor Helen Sullivan
About Us
Meet the Centre Director, Professor Helen Sullivan
I am delighted to take up the directorship of the Centre for Public Policy at the University of Melbourne. Since its establishment in 1995 the Centre’s commitment to improving the quality and effectiveness of public services and the public sector through its research, teaching and knowledge exchange activities has earned it a national and international reputation. The Centre has a strong legacy upon which to build and I am excited at the prospect of leading the Centre and shaping the next phase of its life.
Prior to moving to Melbourne I worked in the UK beginning my career in local government before returning to academia full-time in 1996. I have worked at the Institute for Local Government Studies, University of Birmingham, at the Cities Research Centre, UWE, Bristol, where I was Director of Research, and most recently at the University of Birmingham where I was Director of Research and Knowledge Transfer in the School of Government and Society. My research interests include: collaboration; democratic governance (particularly at the local level); and state-society relationships in public policy and service reform and I have published widely on public policy, public governance and public service reform in academic and practitioner journals. I have undertaken numerous evaluations for government bodies and acted as an advisor to government locally and nationally in the UK. I have a keen interest in generating new knowledge with policy makers and practitioners and in 2010/11 directed the University of Birmingham’s first Policy Commission into ‘the future of local public services’.
The contemporary challenges facing public servants – elected and appointed – are daunting. Complex policy problems test our established modes of policy implementation and service delivery, prompting us to look for new ways of designing and organizing services including involving users, voluntary organizations and businesses, which in turn raise new regulatory and accountability dilemmas. A more sophisticated and diverse public questions the authority of public servants and makes different demands of public services, presenting challenges of how to respond in an inclusive, democratic way that protects those who are otherwise marginalized and disadvantaged. And global economic uncertainties pose questions about what it is possible for ‘the state’ – at any level – to do or fund, opening up new debates about the role of individuals and communities in contributing to their own well-being, as well as encouraging us to think more about the potential of alternative forms of organizing.
These debates are taking place in different ways in different parts of the world informed by distinct histories, traditions and trajectories. But the debates and the policy challenges at the heart of them are also linked, vertically and horizontally through local, national and international policy networks and institutions. A key ambition for the Centre is to generate new insights and learning from these shared though distinct concerns by facilitating interactions with academics, policy makers and practitioners locally, nationally and internationally. This will involve building on its existing international linkages as well as developing new connections.
It will also involve academics working in new ways with policy makers and practitioners, developing tools and approaches for generating learning and knowledge together. This was a key focus of my most recent work in the UK and I am keen that the Centre builds on its tradition of knowledge exchange in this way. More information about the Birmingham Policy Commissions.
The Centre’s engagement with public governance and management has always be broadly based, working with public sector employees, with voluntary and private sector employees engaged in public service delivery, and with private sector and non-government organization employees working at the interface between government and the wider economy. The Centre has a long line of distinguished alumni who reflect this broadly based engagement and it will continue to work in ways that appeal to these constituencies, including drawing on its alumni’s experience and expertise.
The Centre will be developing its new work programme over the next few months along with a new website. If you would like to contribute ideas, thoughts or experiences to our developing work programme then I would be delighted to hear from you.
Professor Helen Sullivan
October 2011