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Already in the past, the Digital Governance Lab, as one of the leading institutions in public administration research, distinguished itself by the practical relevance of its research, and the work is often directly implemented in numerous administrative fields and public administration science teaching. This is also the case with two current research projects by Prof. Dr. Ines Mergel:

1. Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age

The project group led by Prof. Dr. Ines Mergel defined eight competencies that were developed in focus groups and, based on these, created an Open Educational Resource (OER) syllabus to integrate these digital competencies into public administration teaching. During the winter semester, the curriculum was tested in parallel at Harvard Kennedy School, the University of Tartu in Estonia, and the University of Konstanz. The team is now in the process of further contextualizing and localizing the syllabus, this means in particular translating it and inserting case studies from the respective context. The plan is to translate everything into German, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese, for which applications for research are currently being submitted. In June, Prof. Dr. Ines Mergel's team will offer a free master class for professors who want to implement the curriculum in their countries.

You find further information on the website of the project.

2.  Accompanying research of the Work4Germany Fellow

The Work4Germany fellowship program, operated by the start-up Digital Service4Germany, supports public administration employees in integrating modern working methods and relevant future competencies into their everyday work and accompanies strategic projects of the federal ministries to transform work culture. The work of the government-owned start-up is under the auspices of the Bundeskanzleramt (Federal Chancellery) and cooperates with the project team led by Prof. Dr. Ines Mergel, who designed the program's accompanying program and conducts the onsite research.

Among other things, the fellows and their tandem partners from the federal ministries will be interviewed before and after their program run to understand how new work practices and methods (e.g. design thinking, agile, change management) can be incorporated into the routines of the administration. Likewise, the syllabus developed in the Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age project mentioned above is being applied in the Fellowship program's companion program. The Tagesspiegel reported in several articles (13.04.2021, 19.04.2021) about the work of Prof. Dr. Ines Mergel.