OUR NETWORK
CoREx comprises a Pan-European network of researchers, studying the relationships between executive politicians, top civil servants, and ministerial advisers (‘the executive triangle’) in many European states.
Core Team
Prof. Thurid Hustedt
Action Chair, Grand Holder Scientific Represtentative
Thurid Hustedt is Dean of Graduate Programmes and Professor of Public Administration and Management at the Hertie School. Her research focuses on public sector change dynamics, political-administrative relations and comparative public administration. Hustedt is the Managing Editor of the peer-reviewed journal dms – der moderne Staat (with Sylvia Veit). Previously, she was a visiting professor at the Freie Universität Berlin and a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Potsdam. She was a visiting researcher at the University of Bergen and the University of Toronto. Hustedt holds a PhD and a Diploma in Public Administration from Potsdam University.
Prof. Tobias Bach
Action Vice Chair, Co-lead of working group 1
Tobias Bach is Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Norway. His research focuses on politics-administration relations and bureaucratic politics in an internationally comparative perspective. He leads the research group Policy, Bureaucracy and Administration and is co-founder of the Norwegian Panel of Public Administrators.
Prof. Salvador Parrado
Science Communication Coordinator
Salvador Parrado teaches public administration at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (Spanish Distance Learning University), Madrid, and is associate faculty at the Hertie School, Berlin. He has conducted comparative research on the politicisation of the civil service, executive politics, public management, service coproduction, public values, and public-private partnerships. Currently, he works on comparative administrative systems and citizens’ preferences in educational policies.
Prof. Tiina Randma-Liiv
Grant Awarding Coordinator
Tiina Randma-Liiv is Professor of Public Policy at Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia, where she also acts as Vice Dean for Research of the Faculty of Business and Governance. She is a member of Academia Europaea and the Estonian Academy of Sciences. She previously served as Professor of Public Management at the University of Tartu, and as Visiting Professor at the Catholic University of Leuven, the University of Gdansk, Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, and Florida International University. She has published two monographs and more than 80 peer-reviewed publications on the topics of comparative public administration, civil service reforms, the impact of crisis on public administration, citizen engagement and small states. Tiina has served in the academic advisory board of the European Public Service Award, in the advisory board of the UNDP Regional Centre for Public Administration Reform, and in the OECD Expert Group of the Partnership for Democratic Governance. She has been a member of the Advisory Board to the Estonian Minister of Public Administration, a member of the Academic Council of the President of Estonia and of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Board on administrative reform. She is also a co-founder and a board member of the biggest Estonian think-tank – PRAXIS Centre for Policy Studies.
Nino Münch
Grant Holder Manager
Nino Münch holds a Master of Science (M.Sc.) degree in Global Studies from Lund University, Sweden. She is the Associate Dean of Graduate Programmes at the Hertie School, as well as the Grant Holder Manager for the COST Action CoREx.
Dr. Katarína Staroňová
Co-lead of working group 1
Katarína Staroňová is Associate Professor at the Institute of Public Policy, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences at Comenius University Bratislava, Slovakia. At CoREx she leads WG1-Institutional Context with Tobias Bach and Kutsal Yesilkagit. Her research focuses on patronage practices, politicization and advisers in Central and Eastern Europe. She leads also a standing WG on politico-administrative relations at NISPAcee (Network of Institutes and Schools of Public Administration in Central and Eastern Europe) together with Bernadette Connaughton.
Prof. Jan-Hinrik Meyer-Sahling
Co-lead of working group 2
Jan-Hinrik Meyer-Sahling is Professor of Political Science at the University of Nottingham, School of Politics and International Relations. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and was a Max Weber Fellow and a Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. Prof Meyer-Sahling’s work focuses on civil service reform and management in Europe and in developing countries. He is a co-founder of the Centre for People Analytics in Government. and the Global Survey of Public Servants; a joint initiative of the University of Nottingham, University College London, Stanford University and the World Bank. For details of his CV, please see www.meyer-sahling.net.
Dr. Pierre Squevin
Co-lead of working group 2
Pierre Squevin is postdoctoral fellow at the department of political science, University of Oslo, Norway. He has started in this research and teaching position in spring 2022, after having received his PhD from the UCLouvain in 2021. His main research interests include policy advice, policy learning, ministerial advisers and ministerial offices, the career patterns of administrative elites and ministerial advisers, as well as the consequences of professional mobility within but also in and out of the public sector. His geographical focus has so far covered Belgium and France, although it has been gradually expanding to include the Scandinavian countries. Before CoREx, he has been involved in the activities of Cost ProSEPS.
Prof. Sylvia Veit
Co-lead of working group 2
Sylvia Veit is Professor of Public Administration and Digital Government at Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg. From 2014 to March 2024, she held the Chair of Public Management at the University of Kassel. Her research focuses on the relationship between politics and administration, administrative politicization, career patterns in public administration, administrative reforms and policy advisory systems. She was a visiting scholar at Victoria University of Wellington in 2018. She received her PhD from the University of Potsdam in 2009. Her numerous publications have appeared in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, the International Review of Public Administration, Policy Sciences and Public Administration, among others. For more information please see: www.hsu-hh.de/padigi
Dr. Erik-Jan van Dorp
Co-lead of Working Group 3
Erik-Jan van Dorp works as assistant professor at the Utrecht University School of Governance.
Dr. Stine Hesstvedt
Co-lead of working group 3
Stine Hesstvedt is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Research in Oslo. Her research interests include the role of expertise and knowledge in policy making, the politics of bureaucracy, and issues related to democratic decision-making more broadly. Her research has been published in journals such as the Journal of European Public Policy, West European Politics, and Governance.
Prof. Marleen Brans
Co-lead of working group 4
Marleen Brans (PhD EUI) is Professor at the KU Leuven Public Governance Institute and Visiting Professor at UCLouvain. She researches the connections between politics, citizens and policies, with a focus on the production and use of policy evidence and advice. Her current research focuses on the political advisers in ministerial offices and on the science-policy nexus. She teaches courses on Policy Analysis, Evidence-Informed Policy-Making, and the Success and Failure of Policy Implementation.
Athanassios Gouglas
Co-lead of working group 4
Athanassios Gouglas is senior lecturer at the University of the West of Scotland and director of the MPA programme. He is also honorary senior lecturer at the University of Exeter, United Kingdom, and research fellow at the Public Governance Institute at KU Leuven, Belgium. He previously served as André Molitor Professor of International, Political and Administrative Reforms at Université Catholique de Louvain in 2020/2021. Dr Gouglas currently leads Working Group 4 ‘Accountability and Transparency in the Executive Triangle’ in EU Cost Action Project CA22150 - Comparative Research on the Executive Triangle in Europe, in which he is also core executive group member and management committee member representing the United Kingdom.