XClose

UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose

Home
Menu

Wolfgang Drechsler

Wolfgang Drechsler is an Honorary Professor at the UCL Institute for Innovation for Public Purpose (IIPP).

Wolfgang Drechsler
Wolfgang Drechsler is Honorary Professor at the UCL Institute for Innovation for Public Purpose (IIPP), and Principal Investigator of the Islamic Public Value project at IIPP, funded by the John Templeton Foundation.                                                                               

Wolfgang is Professor of Governance at the Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance at Tallinn University of Technology, as well as an Associate at Harvard University’s Davis Center

Wolfgang previously taught at the Universities of Marburg, Giessen, Frankfurt/Main, and Tartu (Chair of Public Administration); as André Molitor Chair (professeur invité) at the Université catholique de Louvain; as Visiting Professor at the Universities of Lund and of Erfurt, at the Central University of Finance and Economics Beijing, at the University of Malaya, at Zhejiang and at Gadjah Mada Universities, at NIDA Bangkok, at the Lee Kuan Yew School, National University of Singapore. In 2019, he was an ANZSOG Visiting Scholar, and in 2022, Distinguished Visiting Professor of Public Value at Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s College of Public Policy. He is Chairperson of the Board of the European Association for Public Administration Accreditation (EAPAA).

Wolfgang has received the Estonian National Science Award; the Alena Brunovskà Award and the Merit Award from NISPAcee; the Outstanding Alumnus Award from Bridgewater College; the Maarjamaa Rist, Estonia’s Order of Merit; the German Federal Merit Cross; TalTech’s Top Scientist award as best PhD advisor for three years in a row; and the Senator Boorsma Award from SECoPA. He is the author or editor of more than 20 books and journal issues and well over 150 scholarly articles, as well as editor-in-chief of Halduskultuur. His book How to make an Entrepreneurial State: Why Innovation needs Bureaucracy (with IIPP Deputy Director Rainer Kattel and Erkki Karo) was published by Yale University Press in September 2022. 

Wolfgang’s areas of interest include Non-Western PA, Governance, and Economics, especially Islamic, Buddhist, and Confucian; Technology, Innovation & PA; and Public Management Reform generally. He also has an active interest in Political Philosophy and in Economic Theory. His regional foci are Southeast and East Asia and Central and Eastern Europe.