IBM Center 2011 Call for Research Report Proposals

Since creation of the IBM Center for The Business of Government more than 13 years ago, it has been our goal to help public sector executives and managers address real-world problems by supporting leading researchers who produce empirical evidence to inform the debates about whether particular management approaches will improve government performance.

For this reason, we are pleased to solicit proposals to prepare reports with insightful findings and actionable recommendations for government executives and managers. We are eager to help communicate what you know about “what works” to busy government executives and managers. We are particularly interested in the following areas that align with the Administration’s strategies to boost government performance:

• Performance improvement and analysis,
• Workforce transformation,
• Collaboration and management across boundaries,
• Reforming federal contracting and acquisition, and
• Transparency and participatory democracy, using Web 2.0 technology.

The January 2011 special issue of the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (JPART) is devoted to the Minnowbrook III conference on “The Future of Public Administration Around the World.” In “Crossing the Divide: Building Bridges between Public Administration Practitioners and Scholars,” Brenda K. Bushouse, Willow S. Jacobson, Kristina T. Lambright, Jared J. Llorens, Ricardo S. Morse, and Ora-orn Poocharoen discuss the challenges of better connecting public administration scholarship to practice. They recognize the IBM Center as one example of a research program in which scholars write specifically for a practitioner audience.

The reason for this is quite simple. Public sector executives and managers need the best, most practical advice which is available when it comes to the business of government - which is their mission and management challenges. One of our goals is to help “bridge the gap” between research and practice by helping to stimulate and accelerate the production of actionable research. For this reason we seek proposals for first-class, rigorous research to provide those in government lessons learned and insights to better address mission and management challenges.

We again look forward to receiving proposals and to continuing to work with the world’s leading public management researchers. Our next deadlines are October 3, 2011, and March 1, 2012.

To apply for a research stipend, visit our registration page.