On 1 October 2024, Dr Jiska Engelbert was appointed extraordinary professor on the Ien Dales Chair 'Government as a Work Organisation'. She focuses on leadership in digital transitions, digital innovations and transformation of public services, with a particular focus on decentralised governments. The academic challenges identified through the Ien Dales Chair fits perfectly with the ongoing research within the Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University. Jiska Engelbert also works at Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences.
As a professor, Jiska Engelbert will focus on developing a digital civil service ethics for local governments. 'I am grateful to hold a position that, quite literally, is founded on being able and allowed to connect people, organisations, disciplines and practices. That suits me. From that connection, I want to contribute to a more 'a-technological' interpretation of a digital civil service ethics. Often, thinking about the ethical aspects of digitalisation within municipalities starts and ends with asking technical questions about digital technology. Is the technology safe? How does it actually work? What happens to the data?
Those questions and their answers are, of course, crucial. However, they are not always enough to guarantee that local civil servants can work ethically and with integrity. And they do not always guarantee that civil servants put the general interest of all residents in a municipality at the centre of their actions and decisions. That is why I want to investigate, together with direct stakeholders, how social questions about digital technology can be asked and how these questions can become a formal part of everyday work processes and organisational structures in local governments'.
Scientific director Bernard Steunenberg (Institute of Public Administration) is very pleased with the perspective Jiska Engelbert offers to this chair and looks forward to a further and more intensive collaboration with CAOP.
About the Ien Dales Chair
The A&O Fonds Gemeenten and the CAOP Foundation fund this chair.
The chair is based at Leiden University, Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (Institute of Public Administration), 0.2 ft. It was established by the CAOP Foundation and is supported by the Special Chairs Foundation.
CAOP Foundation is pleased with the establishment of this chair. The chair is embedded in CAOP's Ien Dales Chair, which traditionally focuses on integrity and ethical issues within government as a labour organisation. The assignment now focuses on leadership in digital transitions and relates to the government as a future-proof labour organisation in terms of digitalisation. With this, the chair develops along with developments within the public sector, which generates all kinds of issues in which public leadership can and should play a role. The theme also ties in with the other chairs supported by the CAOP Foundation, which focus on transitions in the public sector, innovation, equal opportunities and positive health.
Together, CAOP Foundation and the chairs contribute to the future of work, the future of learning, and the quality of public administration.
A&O fonds Gemeenten is happy with the appointment of Jiska Engelbert to further shape in practice how to connect people and organisations in (digital) transformations within the public service sector, such as municipalities.
About CAOP Foundation
CAOP Foundation is committed to a society where everyone can participate and contribute, a society in which you are seen, given opportunities, and in which everyone benefits from progress. CAOP Foundation does this by exploring, connecting, and changing as a knowledge centre.
About A&O fonds Gemeenten
A&O fonds Gemeenten helps municipalities develop and professionalise as employers and develop and grow their employees. Municipal employees are the change makers who positively impact society and move society forward. The A&O fund is there for the difference-makers.
About Jiska Engelbert
Prof. Dr. Jiska Engelbert explores and challenges the power and politics of digital or “smart” cities. She does this as part of her role as strategic and (soon) academic director for the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for BOLD Cities and through sharing the thematic leadership for Vital Cities & Citizens’ “Smart Cities & Communities”. Jiska is also the team lead of “Public Issues & Imaginaries”, one of the four teams within the Department of Public Administration & Sociology (DPAS).
Press release partly copied from CAOP
- Researcher
- More information
Marjolein Kooistra, communicatiions ESSB, + 31 683676038 kooistra@essb.eur.nl
