Stuart Bretschneider, professor emeritus of public administration and international affairs, has received the 2025 Kooiman Award for his co-authored article, “Speaking Truth to Power … or to the Ivory Tower? Public Affairs Researchers’ Reports of Practitioners’ Use of Their Research.”

The award honors the best paper published each year in Public Management Review, an international academic journal focused on how public services are managed, delivered and shaped by policy. It publishes research spanning government, nonprofit and private sectors, with an emphasis on cross-disciplinary and cross-national perspectives.

In the article, Bretschneider and co-authors Barry Bozeman, Spencer Lindsay and John P. Nelson shared findings from a survey of 409 authors published in top public administration and policy journals, including that 29.7% of academic articles made it into real-world policymaking. The research found that intentionality matters most, meaning authors who set out to influence policy, partnered with practitioners and communicated with them early and often were far more likely to see their work implemented.

Bretschneider, a Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor for Teaching Excellence, was granted emeritus status in the spring of 2017. He joined Maxwell in 1982 as a senior research associate for the former Metropolitan Studies Program and held several leadership roles, including associate dean and chair of the Public Administration and International Affairs Department and director of the former Center for Technology and Information Policy.  

By Jacob Spudich