On November 13th 2025, NIG will host its second Colloquia Off-site Day at the Utrecht School of Governance (Bijlhouwerstraat 6, 3511ZC, Utrecht). On this page, you will find a descripton of the events that will be taking place on our Colloquia Off-site Day 2025, on November 13th. The following colloquia will be there:

• • • • Administrative Ethics (9:30 – 16:30) – Exploring Thompson’s work and working towards a collective issue
      • Critical and Interpretive Public Administration Research (9:30 – 16:30) – Session on methodological skills to enhance your research practice
      • Democratic Innovations: Design and Impact (9:30 – 16:30) – Collaborative session with a keynote speech, and discussing future research and finding possible future collaborations
      • Diversity, Representation and Inclusion (13:30 – 16:00) – Reflection session on the role of the researcher in the current debate on diversity, equity and inclusion
      • Energy and Climate Governance (10:00 – 16:30) – Discussion about the activities and agenda of the colloquium and a workshop on the status of governance of the energy transition in the Netherlands
      • Political Economy of the Green Transition (9:30 – 16:30) – Reading group, presentation and feedback session on current debates in the field
      • Robust and Time-sensitive Governance (9:30 – 16:30) – Discussion session on research topics on the theme of how to deal with time, futures and uncertainty in present-day politics and policy making

Please find a more elaborate description of each event down and the button to register  below. 

Administrative Ethics (9:30 – 16:30)
Revisiting the possibility of administrative ethics: moral responsibility from the ground up
Thompson’s 1985 seminal article on the possibility of administrative ethics marked a watershed moment in the history of administrative ethics as a distinctive and promising sub-field of study within the discipline public administration. Since then, the administrative state has undergone some salient practical transformations – for instance, digitalization, co-production, and customization (maatwerk), which pose new obstacles and opportunities for administrative ethics and question whether public sector officials’ moral responsibility is still possible and/or desirable. We construe the term public sector officials comprehensively, to include professionals engaged in public tasks in different contexts, such as judges, police officers, social workers, healthcare professionals, teachers.

This colloquium session will explore the relevance of Thompson’s work for theorizing and empirically examining moral responsibility relations and decision-making in public administration, as well as for drawing lessons for administrative practice. Its contributions relate to various subthemes of moral responsibility, such as moral craftmanship, ethical decision-making, intraorganizational relationships and loyal contradiction. The colloquium will bring together empirical and normative approaches to administrative ethics, and will be geared toward the publication of a collective issue on the topic of moral responsibility and the democratic administrative state.

Critical and Interpretive Public Administration Research (9:30 – 16:30)
Emotions & affect in critical-interpretive research
 What is the role of emotions and affect in critical-interpretive research, of those we research and our own? Do they lead us to do research differently, and if so, how? How to position oneself, emotionally, affectively in research? And what, for instance, do we do when feel stuck, frustrated or sad in fieldwork, analysis or writing?
This off-site NIG day of our CIPA colloquium, we deal with such questions as we explore how to look at, understand and work with emotions and affect in our research. Noortje van Amsterdam, associate professor at UU/USBO, will join us to talk about her extensive research on the topic and to engage us in practical exercises.
We hope you will be there as well. If you are working with empirical (textual) data currently or still have some you want to work with, please bring them with you. If you don’t, we’ll bring data for affective exploration. Any questions or suggestions, mail Simone van de Wetering S.A.L.vdWetering@tilburguniversity.edu and/or Merlijn van Hulst M.J.vanHulst@tilburguniversity.edu

Democratic Innovations: Design and Impact (9:30 – 16:30)
The NIG-colloquium on Democratic Innovations will be organising a collaborative session on ‘Current Issues in Democratic Innovations Research: Lessons Learned and Future Agenda’. We will kick off the day with presentations on the key takeaways from several large-scale research projects (including those at the basis of the colloquium). This is followed by a keynote speech by a renowned scholar in the field of Democratic Innovations. Participants are subsequently invited to actively connect their own findings and insights on the topic of Democratic Innovations to these reflections in an open group discussion. After breaking for lunch, we will discuss the most fruitful avenues for future research and actively seek out future collaboration opportunities among all the interested participants. The intent is to lay the foundations for joint projects and common publications within and beyond the Low Countries.

Diversity, Representation and Inclusion (13:30 – 16:00)
The colloquium Diversity, Representation and Inclusion will host an afternoon session for fellow academics to reflect on a pressing and complex topic: the role of the researcher in the current debate on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). This event will explore the theme from three interrelated perspectives:

• • • • • Philosophy of science: how can different philosophical paradigms help us engage with DEI-related questions?
        • Research practice: how does the DEI debate shape the choices we make regarding what we research, how we conduct research and with whom?
        • Public debate: what is (or ought to be) our role as scholars in the broader societal discourse on DEI?

The aim of the session is to exchange experiences, perspectives, and practical approaches. We seek to create a space for reflection, critical dialogue, and mutual engagement.The event is open to all, regardless of academic rank or position, but places are limited (max. 12 including colloquium chairs). Registration is therefore required. In advance of the session, participants will receive a brief preparation package (including selected readings and reflection questions).

Energy and Climate Governance (10:00 – 16:30)
The NIG research colloquium ‘Energy and Climate Governance’ will organize an off-site day on November 13th focusing on two elements. In the morning (10:00-12:30) we want to have a discussion about the activities and agenda of the research colloquium. This includes: mission and vision document, perspective paper, NIG course, and preparation of the panel for the 2026 NIG conference at Leuven. Secondly, in the afternoon (13:30-16:30) we want to organize a workshop on the status of governance of the energy transition in the Netherlands with a plenary part and a part with world cafés where we will discuss in groups. The results will then be presented in a plenary session.

Political Economy of the Green Transition (9:30 – 16:30) – New colloquium!
The new NIG Colloquium “Political economy of the green transition” plans to organize both a morning and an afternoon session under the common theme of ‘Current debates in the political economy of the green transition’. The morning session will be a reading group on state of the art, and the afternoon session will be a presentation and feedback session for early career members (PhD candidates) of our colloquium.

Robust and Time-sensitive Governance (9:30 – 16:30)
The colloquium “Robust and time-sensitive governance” plans to organise a PhD day to discuss particular research topics/questions on the theme of how to deal with time, futures and uncertainty in present-day politics and policy making. The event is organised by Barbara Vis, Wieke Pot, Ella MacLaughlin and Noor Hendriks in collaboration with Jorren Scherpenisse, Marij Swinkels and Joram Feitsma. The target audience are PhD candidates interested in this theme.