Jenny M LewisFASSA is a political scientist, academic, and author. She is a professor of Public Policy and the Academic Director of Scholarly and Social Research Impact in Chancellery Research & Enterprise at the University of Melbourne.[1]
Lewis' research focuses on public policy, with a particular emphasis on governance, the policy-making process, policy networks, and the politics of performance measurement.[2] She is the author of numerous publications, including Innovation in City Governments Structures, Networks, and Leadership, Academic Governance: Disciplines and Policy, and Getting Welfare to Work: Street-Level Governance in Australia, the UK, and the Netherlands.[3]
Lewis earned a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Statistics in 1981 from the University of Melbourne, followed by a Graduate Diploma in Recreation Planning in 1983 from the University of Canberra. She then received a Master of Environmental Studies in 1987, a Graduate Diploma in Public Policy in 1993, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1997, all from the University of Melbourne.[1]
Lewis served as a Civil Servant in the State Government of Victoria from 1986 to 1992 and began her academic journey as an NHMRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Health and Society at the University of Melbourne in 1998. She was then a Senior Research Fellow funded by VicHealth and the Department of Human Services within the Centre for Health and Society and the Department of Political Science at the University of Melbourne from 2001 to 2005. Subsequently, she held an appointment as a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and was promoted to associate professor of Public Policy in 2008. Subsequently, she joined Roskilde University as a professor of Public Administration and Public Policy in 2010 and concurrently served as an Adjungeret Professor there and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow from 2013 to 2016 at the University of Melbourne. Since 2013, she has held an appointment as a professor of Public Policy at the University of Melbourne.[5]
Lewis was appointed as the Research Director for the Melbourne School of Government, was Chair of the Political Science Discipline in 2016, and served as the Founding Director of the Policy Lab from 2016 until 2018. Additionally, she was the Associate Dean of Research from 2018 to 2019 and was appointed as the Academic Lead for Research Impact for the University of Melbourne from 2020 until 2021.[5] Since 2022, she has been serving as the Academic Director of Scholarly and Social Research Impact in Chancellery Research & Enterprise at the University of Melbourne.[1]
Lewis' research has involved the integration of public policy and administration, and sociology, as well as the use of novel empirical methods to study the policy process. She is most known for her examination of public sector innovation, research policy, performance measurement, network governance, policy making and policy design.[2]
Lewis' research focuses on governance and its evolving structures, highlighting the significant impact of corporate-market hybrid and network models on frontline work orientations. Her work highlighted contemporary governance practices, while also questioning established procedural norms in public bureaucracy.[7] In 1999, with Mark Considine she identified four distinct images of bureaucratic work, emphasizing the diversity in orientations among frontline bureaucrats towards these models.[8] Additionally, she underscored the necessity for diversity and synthesis in network governance research, advocating for advanced methodologies to comprehensively analyze networks.[9]
Lewis' significant contributions to public policy and policy design have led to numerous insights. In particular, she emphasized three ideal-type design approaches—optimization, exploration, and co-creation—that characterize policy design.[10] She also examined the influence of networks on health policy agendas, underscoring the crucial role of influence in shaping priorities and demonstrated the use of deliberate strategies to enhance the position of more peripheral issues within policy-making networks.[11] Furthermore, her investigations looked into the interplay between governance, public policy, and boundary-making.[10] Together with Mark Considine and Damon Alexander, she drew attention to the role of individual policy actors, highlighting the significance of their expertise and skills in shaping policy processes, calling for an increased emphasis on the contributions of individual policy actors in policy-making literature.[12]
Lewis has also worked on research (or science) policy and public sector innovation. She examined the impact of academics disciplines and national policy settings on research collaboration and research performance.[13] She analyzed the attributes and constraints of policy labs, unveiling supportive structures and processes that foster creative policy solutions.[14] Her research concerning public sector innovation has emphasized the emergence of innovation labs as novel avenues for policy making, stressing their influence on service design and shedding light on the evolution of the policymaking arena.[15] An examination of factors influencing innovation capacity in European city governments, as conducted by her, demonstrated the significant role of leadership in fostering innovation within public sector environments.[16] Her 2020 research work on the impact of design thinking in public sector innovation labs revealed its potential for reframing policy issues and generating innovative solutions, while also acknowledging the challenges posed by power and politics.[17]
Another prominent aspect of Lewis' work is her earlier research on health policy and partnerships, in which she investigated the power dynamics within the medical profession in Victoria, Australia, highlighting the significant impact of medicine on health policy.[11] In related research, she focused on research partnerships in health, using a network approach to assess partnership strengths, weaknesses, and individual importance.[18] Additionally, she examined the policy environment for chronic disease management in rural and remote Indigenous communities, highlighting successful national and sub-national strategies while identifying areas for improvement in partnerships and workforce development.[19]
Lewis, J. M., McGann, M., & Blomkamp, E. (2020). When design meets power: Design thinking, public sector innovation and the politics of policymaking. Policy & Politics, 48(1), 111–130.
Lewis, J. M., Ricard LM, and Klijn EH (2018) ‘How innovation drivers, networking and leadership shape public sector innovation capacity.’ International Review of Administrative Sciences 84(2): 288-347.
McGann, M., Blomkamp, E., & Lewis, J. M. (2018). The rise of public sector innovation labs: experiments in design thinking for policy. Policy Sciences, 51(3), 249–267.
Lewis, J. M. (2015). The politics and consequences of performance measurement. Policy and Society, 34(1), 1–12.
Lewis, J. M. (2006). Being around and knowing the players: networks of influence in health policy. Social science & medicine, 62(9), 2125–2136.
Considine, M., & Lewis, J. M. (2003). Bureaucracy, network, or enterprise? Comparing models of governance in Australia, Britain, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. Public administration review, 63(2), 131–140.
