Bracing for impact: is public administration ready to be relevant?

Abstract

This chapter introduces the new impulse for public administration scholarship be relevant: the so-called ‘impact agenda’ appearing in academic research audits. We start by providing some background to the impact revolution, explore public administration’s impact credentials, and the various tensions and dilemmas being relevant raises for scholars. After these discussions, we offer some analysis from a unique dataset of public administration impact case studies submitted to the UK’s 2014 Research Excellent Framework (REF). By uncovering the central themes of these studies we identify critical differences between public administration scholars working in politics departments as opposed to their business school counterparts. More broadly, a bias toward managerial themes is strong with traditional, value-driven research around trust, corruption and transparency marginal concerns. We conclude discussing what impact implies for the future research agenda in public administration.