Prof. Richard M WALKER

Public management research in the Department is brought together in the Laboratory for Public Management and Policy, which I am Director. The Lab focuses on answering pressing questions at the intersection of management and policy drawing on experimental methods, integration studies and computational social science. My current agenda is focused on undertaking replications of prior experimental studies in public administration, citizen-government relationships and the effective management of government. 

I am co-director of the newly established Centre for Public Affairs and Law. The Centre promotes world class research on interdisciplinary studies in social sciences and law disciplines related to public affairs. It builds knowledge using evidence-based approaches, big data and devising policy and law-based solutions to policy challenges. The work of the centre is focused in four labs: technology, policy and law, sustainable development, computational social scienes and law and policy innovation.

I am a member of the editorial boards of a number of journals including Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration, and Public Administration Review, Public Management Review. I was President of the Public Management Research Association 2018-2020 (and was a Board Director 2007-2011) and was a Board Member of the International Research Society for Public Management (2012-2017). My research has been supported by grants from the Chiang Ching-kou Foundation (Taiwan), the Economic and Social Research Council (UK), Research Grants Council (Hong Kong), Public Policy Research Fund (Hong Kong) and the National Science Foundation (China) and I have consulted for APEC, OCED, UNDP and governments in Hong Kong and the UK.  I received the 2014 Kooiman Award for Best Paper in Public Management Review the 2015 Radin Award for Best Paper in Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory and the 2019 Louis Brownlow Award from Public Administration Review.

I hold the Chan Hon Pun Professorship in Behavioural and Policy Sciences and a Chair Professorship in Public Management. Prior professorships have been at the University of Hong Kong, and Cardiff University (UK). I have held visiting appointments at Delft University of Technology, Monash University, Rutgers University and Xi'an Jiaotong University and was a Fellow of the Advanced Institute of Management (a research centre of the UK ESRC/ESPRC). In 2020 I was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. I served 2012-2018 as Associate Dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (Research and Postgraduate Studies), as Head of the Department of Public Policy in 2018-19 and am currently the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.

• Public management and performance
• Research methods to advance public management
• Sustainable development 

• Research design
• Public management
• Determinants of performance in public organizations