Jacob Torfing: "The first time I had to supervise a group at RUC, I was completely stunned"
Where do you feel you have made the biggest difference with your research?
- In fact, my good colleagues and I were among the first to research public sector innovation, and through that we have helped create a whole new innovation agenda in municipalities. We conducted a major strategic research project from 2009 to 2013, CLIPS, which resulted in the government and Local Government Denmark (KL) establishing a Centre for Public Innovation, which has now become the National Centre for Public-Private Sector Innovation. It was a proposal I made as an extension of the CLIPS project, and then I simply received a call from some ministry people asking what it would cost and how to do it. So it has really helped to transform the public sector.
- I am particularly interested in how public sector and private partners – both companies, citizens and civil society organisations – can work together to create new and better solutions for society. Ultimately, it’s about finding ways to strengthen democracy by bringing more parties into the conversation, because our democracy is currently under threat and under pressure from many sides.
“When I came here as a young researcher, I was supported in my ideas and enthusiasm in a completely different way than I had experienced elsewhere – there were really good opportunities to get something started."
Why did you choose to do research at RUC?
- When I came here as a young researcher, I was supported in my ideas and enthusiasm in a completely different way than I had experienced elsewhere – there were really good opportunities to get something started. The fact that I have stayed at RUC is probably due to the positive development that has occurred, where there has been an increasing focus on top-class research.
- At the Roskilde School of Governance, we work closely with public sector and private actors throughout the research process, because we believe that interacting with the knowledge produced by a field of practice improves the quality of the research. This kind of interactive research is supported and recognised at RUC, while other universities might think that we should stay in the ivory tower and be distant from our research field in order not to influence it. We have a completely different philosophy at RUC, and I like that.
- And of course there's our study method, which I see as a huge strength. The first time I had to supervise a group of students at RUC, I was completely stunned! At our second meeting they came and told me that since the first meeting, they had interviewed the permanent secretary and a director at the Ministry of the Interior. I was shocked because I was not at all used to students who were so curious and went out on their own to look for data. I had never done an interview in my entire time as a student: all teaching was textbook-based and we were very good at theory, but we were never encouraged to go outside the buildings. Students at Roskilde University are educated differently, and I have since discovered that the project-oriented part of the teaching is also important for me as a researcher, because I get to follow what the students are investigating. A municipal chief executive I know once said: "I always end up hiring RUC graduates because I know I don't have to retrain them from being theory literate to understanding what happens in a municipality – I can put them to work solving practical problems from day one."
What do you want for RUC on its 50th anniversary?
- I am very pleased that RUC has started to prioritise research after many years of fine-tuning our programmes. We're really well equipped to move in that field. We have strengthened our team by recruiting talented researchers, building strong research environments and focusing on top-level research publishing. I believe that excellent research is what will give RUC more clout in the next decade.
About Jacob Torfing
- Researcher on how to organise, manage and lead the public sector.
- He originally graduated in Political Science from Aarhus University and did a Master and a PhD at the University of Essex in England. He was already very interested in the transformation of the welfare state that took place with the major reforms of the 1990s, and how cooperation between the state, the market and civil society can bring about change in the public sector, and in society generally.
- He joined Roskilde University in 1995 and co-founded the Centre for Democratic Network Governance, now the Roskilde School of Governance. He is the director of the centre, which has a strong international profile and has been the setting for a number of major collective research projects.