APG5103 Policy Analysis

APG5129 Evaluation

Professor Michael Mintrom is an authority on public policy processes and advocacy. His award-winning research on policy entrepreneurship has been highly influential. Throughout his career, Michael has advanced knowledge of effective policy development, how policies can have strong, positive impacts, and how academic research can better inform practice. His models of strategic policy development have had significant impact across various areas of government activity, nationally and internationally. He has considerable experience in strategic advising and leading program reviews. In recognition of his scholarship, Michael has received both the Miriam K. Mills award and the Theodore J. Lowi prize from the US Policy Studies Association. He has also served as the elected President of the Public Policy section of the American Political Science Association.

Michael currently serves at Monash University as a Professor of Public Policy and as the inaugural Director of Better Governance and Policy campus-wide research focus area. In these roles, Michael deploys his leadership and management capabilities to assemble cross-disciplinary research teams, foster effective collaborations between university researchers and practitioners, and drive complex and novel projects. 

Michael's current ARC-funded discovery project explores the role of change agents in driving sustainability transitions.

Prior to his present activities, Michael was Professor of Public Sector Management, fully seconded from Monash University to the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG), where his position was fully funded by the State Government of Victoria. At ANZSOG, Michael served as Monash Chair and Academic Director of the acclaimed Executive Master of Public Administration degree, offered in collaboration with multiple university partners. He retains this connection as an ANZSOG Fellow. Michael began his career as an economist and budget analyst in the New Zealand Treasury. He has been a tenured associate professor at Michigan State University and the University of Auckland, a visiting professor at the University of Southern California, a visiting fellow at the Australian National University, a US National Academy of Education / Spencer Foundation post-doctoral fellow and a visiting fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.

As well as having published over 100 book chapters and articles in peer reviewed journals, Michael is the author of Policy Entrepreneurs and Dynamic Change (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Public Policy: Investing for a Better World (Oxford University Press, 2019), Contemporary Policy Analysis (Oxford University Press, 2012), People Skills for Policy Analysts (Georgetown University Press, 2003), and Policy Entrepreneurs and School Choice (Georgetown University Press, 2000). He is co-editor of Policy Entrepreneurship: An Asian Perspective (Routledge 2021), Successful Public Policy: Lessons from Australia and New Zealand (ANU Press, 2019) and Political Leadership in New Zealand (Auckland University Press, 2006) and co-author of Public Policy and Universities: The Interplay of Knowledge and Power (Cambridge University Press, 2022), Public Entrepreneurs: Agents for Change in American Government (Princeton University Press, 1995) and Deregulating Freight Transportation (American Enterprise Institute, 1995). Michael serves on the editorial boards of leading public policy and public administration journals. For more detail on his publication record, please visit Michael's Google Scholar page.