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As of 1 March 2025, Marlies Honingh has been appointed as Endowed Professor in Public Administration and Enacting Democracy. For this new chair, Marlies Honingh will be affiliated to the Utrecht University School of Governance (USG) for one day a week. The chair has been established by the .

Endowed chair

This endowed chair focuses on enacted  democracy as an ongoing collective process to shape our society. Democracy consists of two parts: an electoral and an enacted component. Many public, societal and semi-public organisations play a crucial role in our democracy  as providers of services. These organisations encounter citizens on a daily basis. Yet we know little regarding the weakening or strengthening of democracy via these organisations. This applies both at the administrative level as well as in direct encounters with citizens. The research and education of this chair aim at understanding enacting democracy through public, societal and semi-public organisations. Relevant research questions are how these organisations deal with democratic space and in what way they shape their connecting role between citizens and governments. This is a particularly relevant and topical issue in search for ways to make democracies more resilient The chair aligns seamlessly with the education, research and impact activities of both USG and NSOB. 

Marlies Honingh

Marlies Honingh (1979) studied pedagogical sciences in Leiden and obtained her PhD at the University of Amsterdam on research into hybridity as a result of market-driven governance in the field of education. Since 2008, she has been working at Radboud University within the Department of Public Administration, currently with a small appointment, and from September 2024 Marlies is also working at the Netherlands School of Public Administration. There she is involved in executive education in various courses and works on research projects in the field of citizenship, democracy and governance. .

Her research interests include themes such as democracy, democratic backsliding, citizenship, co-production, governance and supervision in civil society organisations. She has published extensively in international scientific journals in the fields of governance, public administration, regulation and education governance. Her societal commitment is evident not only from her publications and executive education, but also from her commitment to the Association for Public Administration, of which she has been chair since 2023. In addition, Marlies is chair of the 'Working in Education' programme council committee of the Netherlands Initiative for Education Research. She is a member of the Science Chamber of the Secondary Education Council and chair of the evaluation and monitoring committee for internal supervision in education and childcare.

USG

The Utrecht University School of Governance (USG) provides education and conducts research in the broad field of public administration and organisation science. The emphasis is on enriching knowledge about the management and organisation of public issues, in interaction with political and social developments. The leading question is how public organisations and private organisations with a public task deal with current social issues, shape their public responsibilities and deliver public value. The School of Governance is one of the three departments within the Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance (LEG).

The endowed chair is part of the Public Governance chair group of the Public Governance & Management (PGM) research unit. Prof. Albert Meijer is group chair, prof. Mirko Noordegraaf is head of the department.

NSOB

The Netherlands School of Public Administration is an interuniversity training institute that has been developing and providing executive training for many decades, and also invests in scientific and application-oriented research. This is done from the Think Tank, in which professors, researchers with PhDs, young talented graduates and practitioners work together on research into complex and often current issues in public administration. The NSOB Think Tank is characterized by research inspired by practice and relevant to practice. Scientific embedding ensures that this research transcends everyday observations. Wonder is a key concept for the NSOB Think Tank.

The board of the NSOB consists of the deans prof. Mark van Twist and prof. Martijn van der Steen, and the director of the school, dr. Myrte Ferwerda. A Supervisory Board monitors the quality of the institute.