Prof. dr. Mirko Noordegraaf (1969) works at the Utrecht University School of Governance (USG), The Netherlands, as full professor of Public Management. Since Sept. 2023, he is head of department at USG.
From 2012 until 2018 he led the unit Public governance & management (PGM) within USG, and he chaired the executive board of USG. From 2012 until 2019, he led the unit PGM. Between 2018 and 2023 he acted as vice dean for Societal impact, LEG faculty (Law, Economics & Governance), and he was a member of the executive team of the faculty.
He studied Public administration in Rotterdam, at Erasmus University, from 1998 until 1993, where he graduated cum laude. In 2000 he defended his PhD-thesis at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, Attention! Work and Behavior of Public Managers amidst Ambiguity (cum laude). For this thesis he received the Van Poelje Price 2000 for the best PA-dissertation in the year 2000.
As a scholar of public administration/management, he mainly focuses on organization and management themes in the public sphere, with specific emphasis on the work and behavior of public managers. More recently, he focuses on public professionalism and what he calls ‘organizing professionalism’, i.e. new linkages between professionalism and organizations, also within professional practices. In the past few years, he studied manager-professional relations, and he focused on professionals, innovations in service delivery and professional schooling. All of this 'in context': political, societal, administrative and organizational contexts.
At the USG, he was co-chair of the research program Public Matters, and coordinated the research line ‘Public Management’.
In 2004 he published a textbook on public management (in Dutch), which is used in many educational programs in The Netherlands and Belgium, Management in the Public Domain [Management in het publieke domein] (Coutinho, Bussum, 2004, 2nd ed. 2008). In 2011 he published a state of the art Handbook (in Dutch), Handboek publiek management [Handbook of Public Management], with Karin Geuijen and Albert Meijer (Lemma, Den Haag, 2011). In 2015 he published the textbook (in English) Public Management. Performamce, Professionalism and Politics (Palgrave McMillan).
He has published on public management, professional public managers, professionalism and professionals in national and international journals, such as Public Administration, Administration & Society, Public Management Review, Public Administration Review, Organization Studies, Journal of Professions & Organization, Journal of Management Studies, Current Sociology, Comparative Sociology, Evaluation, International Journal of Public Sector Management.
In 2008 he published a book version of his inaugural address, Professional Governance. The conflict between public managers and professionals as struggle over professionalism (Lemma, The Hague). Since then he is involved in (Dutch public) debates about professionals and managers in and around public service delivery.
In between 2003 and 2008 he coordinated a large scale research project, ‘Professional Public Managers. Professionalisation and Professionalism in the Public Sphere’, supported by the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) (VIDI subsidy). Two PhD-students, Martijn van der Meulen and Jeroen van Bockel participated in this project; they defended their PhD’s on the professionalization of health care and police managers in 2009. Since 2007, Bas de Wit worked on his PhD on the professionalization of school leaders (defense in 2012). PhD students Tom Overmans and Marco Sartirana (Bocconi) worked on the (financial aspects of) professional public managers. He also supervised other PhD-students, such as Berit Lindemann who wrote a PhD about professional responses to managerial reform, as well as Marlot Kuiper (professional routines), Evert Schot (interprofessionalism), Jan-Luuk Hoff (professionalism and AI), Jurriaan Jacobs (the organization of professional social-psychological care before/after crises), Teun Meurs (connective police professionalism). Berit, Tom, Marco, Marlot, Teun all defended their PhD's. Erik-Jan van Dorp defended his PhD (craftwork of senior civil servants), cum laude, in 2022.
During many years, from 2006, he coordinated and chaired (with Bram Steijn, EUR) the national Research Colloquim ‘Professionals under Pressure’, supported by the Dutch research school for Government (NIG). Together they worked on a book Professionals under Pressure (AUP 2012).
He is a member of the IRSPM research society, and participates in EGOS standing working group ‘Organizing the Public Sector’. He participated in the FP 7 COST Action ‘Integrating Medicine and Management’. Together with scholars like Ian Kirkpatrick, Stephen Ackroyd, Justin waring, Daniel Muzio, Ellen Kulhmann he organized and co-chaired working groups at conferences like IRSPM (International Research Society on Public Management) and ILPC (International Labor Process Conference). He also co-chaired working groups at EGPA conferences, ECPR 2011, and the 6TAD (EGPA/ASPA) conference in Siena, together with Fred Thompson. In 2009-2010 he was member and chairman respectively of the Levine Book Prize. He co-chairs panels at conference such as IRSPM, EGOS, ISA (RC52) and ESA (RN19), and he is co-chair of permanent study group XX at EGPA, on Welfare state governance and professionalism. In 2009 was hij respectievelijk lid en voorzitter van de Levine Book prize, gelinkt aan het journal Governance.
In 2015-2016, he chaired the organizing committee of EGPA 2016, the yearly conference that was held in Utrecht, at the end of August 2016. He is member of the Steering Committee of EGPA.
He was involved in the long running research project ‘Caring for Management’, which analyzed the work and behavior of managers/executives in health care (with Pauline Meurs, Erasmus University Rotterdam). Annemieke Stoopendaal and Wilma van de Scheer defended their PhD's in 2008 and 2013.
He participated in the international project ‘Observing Government Elites. Up Close and Personal’ (with Paul ‘t Hart and Rod Rhodes), which resulted in a book, Observing Government Elites. Up close and personal (Palgrave McMillan, 2007). Together with Hal Colebatch and Robbert Hoppe he edited a book on Working for Policy (AUP, 2010).
He lectures, at the USG, in bachelor, masters, and executive programs, and outside the USG, he lectured also at/via the NSOB, Police Academy and the Council for the Judiciary.
In the past few years he was involved in smaller and larger projects for different government organizations and public institutions, such as the ministries for Internal Affairs (BZK), Public Housing and Spatial Planning (VROM), Traffic and Waterworks (V&W), Economic Affairs (EZ), Education, Culture and Science (OC&W), and Public Health and Sports (VWS), as well as Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), the Dutch Senior Executive Service (ABD), Association for Mental Health Care (GGZ), and the Association of Municipalities (VNG). In the past few years he coordinated projects on Governing cultures in local government (2006, 2008), Violence against police professionals (2009), Informational burdens of policemen (2011), Multi-stakeholder evaluation of police performance (2011). He also led several commissioned studies on terrorism, counter-terrorism and security, together with colleagues from Utrecht University, such as Beatrice de Graaf, Henk Kummeling, Kees van den Bos, Paul t Hart, Scott Douglas. He led the evaluation of the Dutch Senior Executive Service (SES), commissioned by the minister of Internal Affairs.
He was a member of the Knowledge Council for the Police, many years ago, led by the mayor of Utrecht, Aleid Wolfsen. He was a member of the Jury of the prestigious Dutch ‘Public Manager of the Year’ award, led by former politicians. He was a member of the Advisory Council of the Dutch Senior Executive Service (ABD), a member of a few (supervisory) boards. He was a member of the peer-review committee Courts (2014), the evaluation committee Redesign Judicial System, and supervisory committee Review Judiciary. He was a member of the Review Board Digitalization of the judiciary. At the end of 2022 he started as delegated commissioner for a fact finding investigation for Dutch Parliament.
He is a member of the jurys of the Government Awards for the best Public Organization of the Year, and Public Innovation of the Year.
He was editor for the journal Bestuurskunde, member of the Advisory Boards of the Journals M&O and Sociology, and reviewer for journals like Public Administration, Governance, J-PART, Public Administration Review, Organization Studies, Human Relations, Work & Occupation, and many other journals. He is a member of the Netherlands Institute for Government (NIG), and he was a member of the review committee of the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research, as well as a board member of the Dutch Association for Public Administration (VB). He chaired the Van Poelje jury (for the best dissertation in The Netherlands and Flanders). He also was a columnist for the ‘Staatscourant’.
At the moment he is chair of the Dutch Asssociation for Public Administration, the VB, since 2017.