Dr Koen P.R. Bartels

• PhD in Politics, University of Glasgow, 2012
• MPhil in Public Administration, Leiden University, 2008
• BSc in Public Administration, Leiden University, 2006
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Koen holds a BSc and MPhil in Public Administration from Leiden University (the Netherlands) and a PhD in Politics from the University of Glasgow. He previously worked as Lecturer in Management at Bangor Business School. He currently holds a visiting position at the Heseltine Institute (University of Liverpool).

His interdisciplinary research on relationships between citizens and government spans across public policy, urban studies and public administration. As an action researcher, Koen co-produces knowledge and action with stakeholders to generate learning and change. He is passionate about supporting new ways of relating, thinking and acting that transform relational dynamics between communities and urban governance systems. He has been involved in grant-funded research in excess of £550,000 including co-production, knowledge exchange and impact generation in the UK and abroad.

Koen has published 'Communicative Capacity: Public Encounters in Participatory Theory and Practice' (2015) and ‘Action Research in Policy Analysis: Critical and Relational Approaches to Sustainability Transitions’ (2018) as well as a range of articles and book chapters on social innovation, public encounters, participatory democracy, collaborative governance, urban governance, action research, and interpretive policy analysis. He is currently working on two co-authored textbooks: ‘Doing Interpretive Research’ (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2023) and ‘Call to Action Research’ (Edward Elgar, forthcoming 2024).

Koen is DPAP’s Director of Research and teaches modules in public leadership, democracy and participation, and research design and practice. He is also Core Academic Lead ‘Community Recovery and Renewal’ at the Centre for Urban Wellbeing and Associate Editor of the Action Research Journal. Koen leads the Social Prescribing, Assets and Relationships in Communities (SPARC) Network, a cross-institutional collaborative learning space of academic and practice partners concerned with asset-based approaches to social prescribing, addressing health inequalities, and coproducing a social model of wellbeing.

• MSc – Public Leadership
• MPA - Democracy, Governance and Participation
• MA Social Research - Research Design, Practice and Ethics

• Ms Sally Ward – Community self-organisation to mitigate wider mechanisms of social injustice and inequality

• Ms Mega Waty – Co-existing modes of governance and street-level bureaucrats’ practices: the implementation of the CCT programme in Indonesia

• Mr Kevin Harris – Town and Parish Councils, democratic voice and community action

• Mr Tangang Andrew Tangang - Collaborative localism: community governments in the decentralisation process in Cameroon

• Ms. Elizabeth Woodcock – Cross-Sector Collaboration for Wales’ National Wellbeing (external supervisor at Bangor University)

Koen does interdisciplinary research on relationships between citizens and the State. He has created an international profile as a leading scholar in four interrelated areas: public encounters, social innovation, action research, and interpretive policy analysis.

Koen has rekindled research interest in public encounters: the relational dynamics ‘in-between’ and around citizens and agents of the State. He has studied communicative practices and relational patterns in the context of community participation, collaborative governance, community organising and tax administration. In a range of publications, he reveals what happens when citizens and agents of the State meet and what this means for democracy and social justice. He has developed an original theory of communicative capacity that explains how they communicate, why this is so difficult, and what could lead to more productive conversations. He published an agenda-setting article on public encounters in 2013 and co-organised an ECPR Joint Sessions workshop in 2024 to advance it as a sub-field in public administration.

Koen explores how to sustain social innovation in local governance. He conducts action research with social innovators, communities, and local authorities to change in system dynamics. His work has addressed relational dynamics of resistance and change, experiential learning, intermediaries and social innovation ecosystems. Over the past years, he has particularly focused on social prescribing as an innovation in health and social care. Together with academics and practitioners in the UK and the Netherlands, he co-produces community-driven change of health inequalities.  

Koen has taken a leading role in developing action research in policy analysis and beyond. He has developed a relational approach to co-producing learning and change in urban governance and, with Julia Wittmayer, a critical-relational approach to advancing sustainability transitions. Together, they have organised a series of conference panels and grown a network of action researchers in the field of policy analysis, culminating in a co-authored article, two special issues, and an edited volume (Routledge, 2018). Koen has also curated special issues for the Action Research Journal, where he is Associate Editor. His new book, co-authored with Davydd Greenwood and Johan Ravn, is forthcoming with Edward Elgar in 2025: ‘Call to Action Research: Confronting the Social and Environmental Sustainability Crises’.

Koen’s research is at the forefront of the field of interpretive policy analysis. He has improved conceptual understanding of policy as practice and, with Nick Turnbull, relational thinking in public administration and policy analysis. He has co-organised two sections at the ECPR General Conference and co-edited a special issue that have reinvigorated the approach of Deliberative Policy Analysis. With Hendrik Wagenaar, he has published an article about learning and teaching qualitative research and a new book: ‘Doing Interpretive Research: Experience, Learning and Teaching’ (Oxford University Press, 2025). 

External roles

• Core Academic Lead ‘Community Recovery and Renewal’ at the Centre for Urban Wellbeing
• Associate Editor of the Action Research Journal
• Chair of the ECPR Standing Group ‘Theoretical Perspectives on Policy Analysis’
• Lead of the Social Prescribing, Assets and Relationships in Communities (SPARC) Network