We are honored to welcome two Distinguished Keynote Speakers: 

Bert George

Associate Professor at the Department of Public and Inernational Affairs, the City University of Hong Kong

Bert George (BSc, MSc, PhD) is an Associate Professor at the Department of Public and International Affairs of the City University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong SAR), who focuses on strategic planning and management in public administration, public sector performance, behavioral public policy and meta science in public administration using surveys, experiments, literature reviews and meta-analyses. Previous tenured appointments were at Ghent University (Belgium) and the Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands).

Bert’s research interests can be structured into two areas. Firstly, the processes and behavior underlying public strategy. This includes the application, practice and effectiveness of strategic planning and management in public organizations, and the tools, individuals and teams involved in strategic decision-making by public managers or policymakers (i.e. behavioral public strategy). Secondly, the drivers and characteristics of public sector performance. This includes meta-analyses and experiments aimed at identifying factors that can enable or inhibit public sector performance, and work focused on measuring performance taking into account the practical reality of public values pluralism and purposeful performance information use. He is also interested in how public administration scholars “do” research, and how we can enhance the robustness of our methods while maintaining clear practical and theoretical relevance.

Bert holds a PhD in Applied Economics, a BSc in Business Administration and an MSc in Strategic Management from Ghent University (Belgium). He has published in the top journals in his field, including Public Administration Review, Public Management Review and Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. His work has received several awards, including the Louis Brownlow Award by the American Society for Public Administration. He is an Editor of Public Administration Review and is frequently invited as an external expert or speaker, and has worked with a.o. the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Hertie School of Governance (Berlin).

 Stéphane Saussier

Professor of Economics, University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, France 

Stéphane Saussier is Scientific Advisor at the Florence School of Regulation. He is also a Professor of Economics and Management at the Sorbonne Business School. He is a specialist of contract and organization theories. Since 2009, he has been running a research group working on the Economics of Public Private Partnerships at the Sorbonne. He published more than 40 articles, many in international journals such as the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Industrial and Corporate Change, Review of Industrial Organization, International Journal of the Economics and Business, European Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Marketing Channels, Journal of Transport and Economic Policy, Utilities Policy… He is also regularly involved in reports for international institutions such as OECD and European Parliament. For the last 10 years, he has expanded his work towards public private contracts and the organization of public services. He has developed research studies in the water sector with the French authority in charge of water services performance indicators and sunshine regulation. He joined the Florence School of Regulation in 2013.