Janine O'Flynn

Since 2023 I have been the Director of the Crawford School of Public Policy, one of the world's leading interdisciplinary public policy schools, and the premier school in the Asia-Pacific region. Situated at the Australian National University, the Crawford School shapes public policy through excellence in research, postgraduate education, and policy engagement. We educate people who change the world, and undertake research that helps policy makers navigate an increasingly complex environment. 

My research interests are in public management and, in particular, reform and relationships. This covers topics as diverse as the creation and evolution of public service markets, collaboration and joined-up government, and designing effective performance management systems. More recently I have been exploring the intersection of public management practices and morality in areas of extreme complexity, and future directions for the field. My collaborative research projects have received several academic awards including: best articles in Public Administration Review and Review of Public Personnel Administration; the best book award at the Academy of Management (public nonprofit division); and several best paper awards at the Academy of Management. In 2025, I was honoured to deliver the Donald C. Stone Lecture at the American Society for Public Administration conference in Washington D.C.

My most recent co-edited books are Pathways to Positive Public Administration (2024 ) and Research Handbook on Public Management and COVID-19 (2024). Both focus on complex challenges, and involved large groups of colleagues from across the world.

From 2021 to 2025 I served as an  elected member of the Board of Directors for the Public Management Research Association. Between  2012-2018 I was an elected member of the Executive Board of the International Research Society for Public Management. In 2022 I was appointed to the Australian Capital Territory Institute of Public Administration Australia Council, and have represented the ACT on the National Council of the Institute of Public Administration Australia since 2024.

In 2022 I was elected as a fellow of the (US) National Academy of Public Administration and in 2013 I was appointed a fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia (VIC). In 2022, I was appointed to the Advisory Board of the Victorian Public Sector Commission  and served until 2025. Previously I was a member of the Advisory Board for the Australian Public Service Centre for Leadership and Learning (2018-2020) and a member of the Infrastructure Victoria Expert Panel on the Role of Infrastructure in Addressing Regional Disadvantage (2019-2020). Since 2021 I have been a member of the Centre for Public Impact Australia and New Zealand Research Committee, and now co-chair the Research Committee.

In 2019, I was commissioned to co-author a major research paper to  inform the work of the Independent Review of the Australian Public Service in relation to how commissioning and contracting could be done by the federal government: 2030 and Beyond: Getting the Work of Government Done. This work has helped to shape the reform agenda in Australia.   

Together my various activities across research, education and engagement seek to better understand how government works and to contribute to improving the outcomes of those activities.