Rate My Professor Trui Steen

Trui Steen is Full Professor of Public Governance and Coproduction of Public Services in the Faculty of Social Sciences at KU Leuven, where she serves as Director of the Public Governance Institute since August 2024. Previously, she was Vice-Dean for Research in the Faculty of Social Sciences from 2018 to 2023. She holds a PhD in Social Sciences from KU Leuven (2000), with a dissertation titled 'A New Personnel Management in Flemish Local Government'; a Master's degree in Sociology from Ghent University (1995, magna cum laude); and a degree in Business Engineering from KU Leuven (1993, cum laude). Her career trajectory includes researcher and PhD student at KU Leuven Public Governance Institute (1995-2000), research coordinator there (2001-2004), Assistant Professor of Comparative Public Services at Leiden University (2004-2010), Associate Professor at Leiden University (2010-2016, part-time alongside KU Leuven), Professor at KU Leuven (since 2016), and Full Professor (since 2020). In 2023, she was a research visitor at Arizona State University's Center for Organization Research and Design.

Trui Steen's research focuses on innovations in governance and democracy, co-creation and coproduction of public services by public professionals and citizens, collaborative innovation, knowledge coproduction, public values, and local governance. She has supervised PhD projects on topics such as climate adaptation through gardening, digital co-creation, and coproduction during the COVID-19 pandemic, and led funded initiatives including FWO projects on co-creation networks and Belspo Brain-be projects on public sector innovation. Her highly cited publications include 'Co-production and co-creation' (2018, 793 citations), 'The dark side of co-creation and co-production: seven evils' (2018, 331 citations), 'Why people co-produce: Analysing citizens’ perceptions on co-planning engagement in health care services' (2014, 326 citations), 'Why engage in co-production of public services? Mixing theory and empirical evidence' (2016, 280 citations), and 'Coproduction during and after the COVID-19 pandemic: will it last?' (2020, 188 citations). Awards include the NIG PhD Supervisor of the Year (2014), HICSS 2024 Best Paper Award, EGOV 2019 Best Paper Award, VIDI 2010 Vernieuwingsimpuls grant, and Yvan Berghmans Award (2002). She chairs the IIAS study group on coproduction of public services and serves on boards such as the Federale Raad voor Wetenschapsbeleid.