Dear IRSPM members,

After a few very uncertain months, the IRSPM leadership has now made a number of decisions for the year ahead in regard to the membership for the year 2020 - 2021, IRSPM conference in 2021, subscription to PMR and introduced updates to our Privacy Policy in accordance with GDPR

As the current President of IRSPM, I recently recorded an update on decisions made at our board meetings on 21 and 22 April 2020, particularly in regard to our 2021 conference.

This message can be viewed HERE.

The way forward for IRSPM

The board has agreed that there is an exciting opportunity to make this a genuine turning point for IRSPM by taking time to consider the future course of our Society. In addition to some immediate issues that we need to address in regard to membership, we also have a chance to think in detail about our future conferences, including in the light of climate change concerns, and to think strategically about what kind of society we want to be. We have agreed to enter into a process during the remainder of 2020 and will be seeking input from members and friends as we do this.

As COVID-19 poses an unprecedented challenge to political and administrative decision-makers across the globe, International Journal of Public Leadership dedicates two Special Issues to Public Leadership in Times of Crisis.

The first Special Issue with the theme 'Public Leadership in Times of Crisis — Viewpoints on Administrative Leadership in Response to COVID-19' (Guest Editors: Frank Ohemeng, Concordia University, Canada; Tim A. Mau University of Guelph, Canada) is scheduled for June 2021, the deadline for submission is 1 September 2020.

The second Special Issue with the theme 'Public Leadership in Times of Crisis — The Intersection of Political and Administrative Leadership Responding to Crisis' (Guest Editors: Tim A. Mau, University of Guelph, Canada; Frank Ohemeng, Concordia University, Canada) is scheduled for March 2022 - the deadline for submissions is 1 February 2021.

Professor Jean Hartley has been recognised today (Thursday 23 April) with an international lifetime achievement award for her outstanding record of teaching, research and publication on public leadership and management, over more than two decades.

Jean has received this year’s Routledge Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Public Management Research, awarded by the International Research Society for Public Management (IRSPM). A regular contributor to the Society, she was due to receive her award at the Society’s Annual Conference in Tampere, Finland, today but this was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Instead the award citation and ceremony are being conducted virtually.

She is internationally known for her research and teaching on the interplay between political and managerial leaderships, political astuteness capabilities, and the leadership of innovation in public services; and has written many field-defining articles which have been widely cited. In all her work she combines rigorous quantitative and qualitative research with close, interactive engagement with policy-makers and practitioners.

IRSPM is delighted to announce the 2020 IRSPM Rosemary O'Leary prize winner for research on women in public administration:

Ayesha Masood, Assistant Professor at the Suleman Dawood School of Business,
Lahore University of Management Sciences

Ayesha's journal article ‘Influence of Marriage on Women’s Participation in Medicine: The Case of Doctor Brides of Pakistan’, published in Sex Roles, 80: 105–122, was chosen as this year’s winner by an IRSPM board panel (Deborah Blackman, Helen Sullivan and Jenny Lewis). The article deals with marriage and female doctors in Pakistan and is very nuanced in dealing with the complicated nature of multiple overlapping roles for women in medicine, and includes an impressive intertwining of many different levels and concepts. It also deals with women ‘street-level’ public servants working in STEMM areas in a way that is very different to Western framings of this topic. Finally, the panel found that the article has clear implications for practice and recommendations for future research.