King’s Business School, Bush House, London – 15th May 2025
Are you researching public management or public services, broadly defined? Do you have a paper, chapter, research design, or just an early project idea that you’d like friendly but detailed feedback on? Are you thinking about submitting your first journal article? Are you getting ready for your first job talk? Are you wondering how to get your work noticed by policymakers?
The London PhD Colloquium for Public Management is geared at providing detailed, constructive feedback on your work – whatever stage it is at.
• Network with other PhDs and public management faculty
• Learn the dos and don’ts of publishing first-hand from a top journal editor
• It’s a free one-day-event in central London, with lunch provided
For more details and to apply, see below.
Co-Directors: Thomas Elston, Associate Professor of Public Administration at the University of
Oxford, and Clare FitzGerald, Lecturer in Management and Organisation at King’s College London.
Confirmed speaker: Ole Helby Petersen, Professor of Public Administration, Roskilde University,
and Editor of Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.
Participants: PhD students exploring any public management topic at any level of government
and in any geography. For example, contracting and collaboration, public service motivation, public
governance, nonprofit management, performance management.
Purpose: PhD students are under increasing pressure to publish early and publish often, but
opportunities to receive detailed feedback from faculty other than your supervisor can be few and
far between. The Colloquium is meant to fill this gap. Should you be invited to attend, your work
will receive an in-depth review and a set of comments by the Co-Directors and other participants,
ensuring you leave with personalised and actionable ways to move your research forward.
Format: This is a day-long event conveniently located in central London at King’s Business School.
The day consists of student presentations, group discussion, networking, and guest speakers.
Application: Email a provisional title and PQR-word abstract to thomas.elston@bsg.ox.ac.uk and
clare.fitzgerald@kcl.ac.uk by 31st March 2025 for consideration.
Cost: The Colloquium is free to attend, and lunch is provided. There is plentiful public transport to the venue from rail stations and airports; and we are happy to provide letters of recommendation to anyone accepted onto the Colloquium seeking a travel grant from their home institution.
Preparation: Two weeks prior to the Colloquium, by 1st May 2025, participants will circulate the
materials on which they are seeking feedback. Previous participants have shared slides, draft
manuscripts, and polished chapters alike – all are more than welcome.
About the Hosting organisation
The Department of Public Services Management & Organisation within King’s Business School
explores some of the most complex and pressing issues faced by both professionals and
organisations providing public services. We address these concerns by examining the ways in which
organisations are rooted in broader social and political systems, structures, processes and practices.
And, in doing so, we examine the Business School’s interests in the major themes of digitalisation,
governance, diversity & inclusion, and the future of work and the public services.