Research interests

I research topics in the fields of public policy and public administration, as well as political and civic participation. Some key interests include the following:

• Environmental Policy; Citizen and Community Engagement in Environmental Policy
• Behavioural Public Policy - the ethics and effectiveness of behavioural tools of public policy
• Behavioural Public Administration – decision-making, perceptions and behaviour of actors in public administration, including bureaucrats, policy makers and citizens
• Citizen participation in public policy and politics - eg co-production, deliberative mini publics, electoral participation

Current Research Projects

ESRC ACCESS Project: Advancing Capacity in Environmental Social Science. Role: Co-Investigator, Co-Lead of Work Package 3 'Innovate' (Citizen's Panel). 2022-2027.

NERC Renew Project. Renewing Biodiversity through a People in Nature Approach. Role: Co-Investigator, working on Theme 2: Communities. 2022-2027.

Horizon REDIRECT Project. The Representative Disconnect: diagnosis and strategies for rectification (REDIRECT). Role: Research Partner. A brief summary can be found here: project | Law School | University of Exeter. 2023-2027. 

Recent Research Projects

ESRC Impact Acceleration Account/ Devon County Council: "Networks of Exchange: Developing lessons and sharing best practices on Online Public Deliberation ", 2021

Dr Alice Moseley (PI), Prof Patrick Devine-Wright (CoI) and Dr Rebecca Sandover (CoI), with Doug Eltham (DCC), Project Research Fellow: Dr Fionnguala Sherry-Brennan

This project had 4 key aims: firstly, to impact on the evolving design of the Devon Online Citizens Assembly in order to support the development of DCC/DCERG Devon pathways to Net Zero process. Second, the project gathered critical reflections from participants and practitioners involved in the Online Citizens Assembly. Third, a toolkit on online and digital methods for deliberative democratic processes was co-designed and co-produced with partners. Lastly, the project entailed collaborating with leading national organisations to lead webinars on the running of online Mini-Publics. Project outputs can be found on our project page.

ESRC Impact Acceleration Account/ Devon County Council: "Deliberating pathways to net zero emissions with mini-publics: a collaborative evaluation", 2020

Prof Patrick Devine-Wright (PI) and Dr Alice Moseley (CoI), with Doug Eltham (DCC).
Project Research Fellow: Dr Rebecca Sandover

Following the declaration by Devon County Council (DCC) of a Climate Emergency in 2019, 25 organisations came together to form a Devon Climate Emergency Response Group and a Net Zero Task Group. Together these groups have decided to conduct a Citizen's Assembly on Climate Change in 2020. A representative sample of Devon Citizens will meet over several days to deliberate evidence and expert testimony on how best to tackle carbon emissions, with the participants tasked with identifying priorities and making recommendations to feed into local policy and planning through the Devon Carbon Plan.

Our co-produced research is a mixed method study which seeks to further understanding of the value of this type of process from the perspective of the citizens involved, project stakeholders and expert witnesses.  First, we will assess how the process is perceived in terms of legitimacy, transparency and effectiveness. Second, the research will consider the potential for this type of deliberative mini public to be used in other areas of local policy. Finally, the project will generate insights and lessons for other local authorities and public bodies considering the use of deliberative engagement within their efforts to tackle climate change. Project outputs will include a webinar, a workshop and a summary report as well as academic outputs.

UKRI Enhancing Place-based Partnerships in Public Engagement Scheme - Delivering a community supported vision for achieving net zero carbon targets within a livestock farmed environment 
2020- 2021. Project Research Fellow: Dr Steven Guilbert

Working with members of the farming and wider community, this project employed an online deliberative forum, using elements of a Citizen’s Jury approach, to assess evidence relating to the steps necessary to deliver a net zero livestock industry in Devon’s ‘Ruby Country’. Outputs from the exercise will be used to help identify critical actions to deliver net zero livestock production alongside a healthy, thriving rural environment for people and nature. The outputs will also be made available to the Devon Climate Emergency Response group, Devon County Council and the Devon net Zero Task Force, to inform the development of the Devon Carbon Plan. The actions and priorities idenitfied during the project will be promoted for adoption by the livestock sector with support from the wider community in the Ruby Country to help strengthen the future viability of the sector whilst also protecting the unique agricultural characteristics of the Ruby Country, the rural communities which rely on this sector, and the natural environment. The project is a collaboration between Rothamsted Research, the University of Exeter and community partners working in the Ruby Country and wider Devon area (Ruby Country Partnership, West Devon Business Information Point and Devon Communities Together).

Perceptions and Decision-Making about Public Services: Survey Experiments with Citizens and UK Public Officials, Leverhulme/ British Academy Small Grant. 2019-2022.

Dr Alice Moseley (PI). The British Academy funding was derived from a partnership with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The research is conducted in collaboration with Professor Oliver James and Mr Greg Stride (Doctoral Researcher), Department of Politics, Exeter University.

Public officials involved in devising and delivering public policy, like citizens generally, are prone to cognitive biases - unconscious influences which affect the interpretation of evidence and subsequent decision-making. Factors like emotions, inertia and a concern with the immediate moment can exert influence in day-to-day decision-making. In the context of public policy, scholars have noted that this can sometimes lead to problems such as inappropriate allocation of public resources, unnecessary regulation or incorrect interpretations of risk. This research seeks to further understanding about the effectiveness of strategies aiming to mitigate cognitive bias in public policy decision-making contexts. The research uses survey experiments, containing hypothetical, but realistic, decision making scenarios related to environmental decision-making. The experiments also examine how the framing of information may impact on stated willingness to allocate public resources to environmental projects. The research includes and makes comparisons between public officials in UK local government as well as members of the UK public. Working papers available upon request.

Past Research Projects

Youth Voter Registration Pilot Project: Exploring Barriers, Understanding Triggers. University of Exeter ADR Open Innovation fund. 2018-2019.

This seedcorn project engaged different stakeholders to generate lessons about how best to encourage and support voter registration amongst young people. It was funded from the University's Internal ADR Open Innovation fund, with a view to developing a larger research proposal which is currently underway. The pilot project included meetings with local authorities, universities, the Cabinet Office, and young people. Focus groups were conducted with young people, both university students at Exeter and college/ school pupils, to explore their understandings and experiences of voter registration and to generate findings on how best to design interventions to be tested in the field as part of a larger research project with direct policy implications.  

The larger project is being developed collaboratively with a multi-university academic team - Alistair Clark and Emily Rainsford (Newcastle University), Gabriel Katz (Exeter University) and Stuart Wilks-Heeg (Liverpool University), and with local authorities and universities.

Helping Citizens to Exercise Choice in Public Services, UKRC Catalyst Seed Fund, 2014

Dr Alice Moseley (PI), Professor Oliver James (CI) and Dr Carolyn Petersen (CI), University of Exeter.

This project explored (i) citizens’ use of different forms of information to inform choices (eg performance information, peer testimony, research, own experience); (ii) existing services to support choice (eg brokerage, benchmarking websites, decision aids). Provider and service user views in health and social care settings were incorporated.  Seed funding was used to run workshops and ‘sandpits’ to develop a co-produced research agenda with public service commissioners and providers on the development and testing of mechanisms to support user choice. 

Giving Time Project, ESRC Funded, 2012 - 2014

A collaborative project between University College London, the University of Exeter, the University of Manchester and the University of Southampton. Research Team: Professor Peter John (PI), Professor Gerry Stoker (CI), Professor Oliver James (CI), Liz Richardson (CI). Research Fellows: Dr Alice Moseley & Dr Matt Ryan.

Why people give time to contribute to the public good on a voluntary basis is a subject which has held an enduring interest for scholars across the social sciences. The project examined whether sharing information about how others have contributed helped to increase volunteering. The project includes randomised controlled trials, including one exploring the impact of leader (politician, celebrity and peer) endorsement on volunteering levels, and the other examining the effect of social information on volunteering levels. The results of the RCTs have been published are available on my publications page. The project involved volunteers from different contexts: students, those volunteering with national charities and citizens living in social housing.

Chief Executive Succession and the Performance of Central Government Agencies, ESRC Funded, 2010-2013

A collaborative project between the University of Exeter, the University of Kentucky and the University of Cardiff. Research Team: Professor Oliver James (PI), Professor George Boyne (CI) and Dr Nicolai Petrovsky (CI), Dr Alice Moseley (Research Fellow)

This project examined the causes and consequences of chief executive succession in UK Executive Agencies, using an original panel data set of UK Executive Agencies from 1988 to the present day incorporating biographical data on chief executives and measures of executive agency performance. Building on previous research on leadership change in local government, the project sought to provide a new perspective on succession in central government executive agencies focusing on the effect of ‘insiderness’. We examined a series of question including the effects of insider/ outsider background on performance, influences on chief executives’ length of tenure, explanations for the choice of insider/ outsider appointments, and explanations for the survival of central government agencies. The project webpage including working papers can be found here. 

Rediscovering the Civic (ESRC Project), funded by ESRC Ventures, Communities and Local Government, North-West Innovation Network, 2007-2010

A collaborative project between University College London, the University of Manchester and the University of Southampton. Research Team: Professor Peter John, Professor Gerry Stoker, Professor Graham Smith, Dr Sarah Cotterill, Dr Alice Moseley, Dr Liz Richardson.

This project investigated the most effective means to encourage active citizenship. Citizen activities matter because engagement assists public policy outcomes, such as safer communities and more efficient public services. The project sought to develop greater knowledge and understanding of the link between interventions designed to stimulate participation, the level and depth of civic engagement and policy outcomes. This grant also aimed to develop greater knowledge of the type of interventions that policy-makers can undertake to sustain the activities of citizens as users and co-producers of services. The project used innovative experimental methods, including randomized control trials and design experiments, as well as more traditional survey re-analysis, to understand the civic-outcome link.  The research was particularly timely in its impact on recent policy debates about ‘nudge’ and led to the publication of the book Nudge, Nudge, Think, Think (John, Cotterill, Moseley, Richardson, Smith, Stoker & Wales).

Click here to view a full text of the book (first edition). The second edition was published in 2019 by Manchester University Press. 

The Governance of Collaboration in Local Public Service Delivery Networks: An Empirical Study of the Influence and Dynamics of Vertical and Horizontal Coordination Tools in English Homelessness Services (ESRC/ ODPM/ PwC PhD Funded), 2004-2008

My doctoral thesis assessed the effectiveness of policy tools designed to foster collaboration in local public service delivery networks and provided an in-depth case study of the underlying bureaucratic politics of collaboration. A mixed methods approach was employed, combining evidence from documentary sources, a postal survey of 193 English Local Authorities and interviews with 'street level bureaucrats' and with civil servants in central government.

Research students

I am open to supervising new students on topics related to public policy & adminstration, environmental policy, citizen engagement with policy making and behavioural public policy/ administration.

Current students

Rebecca Baker, Doctoral Researcher & Associate Lecturer. Funded by UoE Vice Chancellor's Award. Scheduled to complete in 2023.

Topic: The impact of a politics and government focused curriculum on civic and political engagement in 16-19 year olds in Further Education. A mixed methods study using surveys, focus groups and field experiments. Co-supervised with Professor Oliver James.

Past students

Dr Greg Stride, (2019-2022). Funded by the ESRC (South West Doctoral Training College). Awarded May 2023.

Topic: Adminsitrators' Perceptions of Electoral Integrity in the United Kingdom. Co-supervised with Professor Susan Banducci.

Other information

Internal administrative roles

I am co-leading our Department's Athena Swan Self-Assessment Team and am Director of the MRes and MPA Applied Studies Programmes. I have previously held departmental roles such as Undergraduate Admisssions Officer & Web Officer.

Professional Associations  & Networks

I am a member of the UK Public Administration Committee Executive (Co-Vice Chair Teaching & Learning). I am a member of the Political Studies Association & the European Group for Public Administration. I was secretary of the UK Political Studies Association Public Policy & Administration Specialist Group from 2011-2018 and Co-Convenor from 2018-2020. I am an affilitate of the UoE Global Systems Institute, Exeter Food Network and the Centre for European Studies.

Editorial Positions

I joined the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal Teaching Public Administration (Sage) in 2021.

Peer Review

I act as peer reviewer for international journals such as: Behavioural Public Administration, Climatic Change, European Journal for Political Research, Journal of Experimental Political Science, Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory, Public Administration Review, Public Policy & Administration, Public Management Review, Public Money & Management, Public Administration, Policy Sciences, Local Government Studies.

External impact and engagement

Much of my work involves working with non-academic partners to generate research with relevance to public policy. I also engage in projects that involve disseminating and increasing the accessibility of research findings to non-academic audiences. Much of this interest stems from my background prior working with social workers and health professionals, for example running 'evaluation clinics' to help practitioners devise research designs for evaluating the impact of the work they do, and conducting research reviews on the impact of social care interventions for practitioner audiences.    

Below are a few examples of engagement work I've done with non-academic partners.

ESRC IAA Projects (2020-21)

Working in collaboration with Devon County Council and the Devon Climate Emergency Response Group to explore the potential of citizens' assemblies for addressing climate change and other challenging policy areas. With my partners and co-investigators, I have received to ESRC IAA grants associated with this work. In these projects, we explore perceptions of deliberative forums such as Citizens' Assemblies, from the perspective of those commissioning them as well as wider publics. We are also producing a toolkit and conducting a webinar exploring the potential uses of these sorts of institutions of deliberative democracy for local authorities and other interested parties. As part of our work, we have produced two evidence guides (rapid reviews) for Devon County Council and the Devon Climate Emergency Response Group, providing evidence-based guidance on the design of the Devon Net Zero Online Citizen's Assembly, taking place in 2021. Project outputs aimed at policy maker and practitioner communities can be found here:

• Moseley, A., Reed, E., Sandover, R. & Devine-Wright, P. (2022). Online Public Deliberation Toolkit: Guidance for using online methods for deliberative public engagement. Produced by the ESRC IAA Project Networks of Exchange: Developing lessons and sharing best practices on Online Public Deliberation.
• Devine-Wright, P. & Moseley, A. (2019). Developing a Net Zero Citizen's Assembly for Devon: A Rapid Review of Evidence and Best Practice, Prepared for the Devon Climate Emergency Response Group and the Devon Net Zero Task Force. 
• Sandover, R., Moseley, A. & Devine-Wright. (2020). The Feasibility of an Online Citizens’ Assembly to support Devon’s Transition to Net Zero: Rapid Review

Public Event on Climate Change, May 2019. So You've Declared a Climate Emergency: What Next?

I had the privilege of speaking at a public event on the Climate Emergeny at the University of Exeter, hosted by the Global Systems Instutute. The evening event was aimed at discussing the implications of the declaration of a climate emergency by the UK Govt and by a growing number of local authorities and univerities, including Exeter University, Devon County Council and Exeter City Council. Public engagement was extremely high and there were over 500 attendeed across the Streatham and Penryn Campuses. Provocateurs gave a number of short presentations to generate debate, and a panel of experts took questions from the audience. The event incoporated a multi-disciplinary panel of academics, local activist groups, political parties and environmentally focused social enterprises. I spoke about Citizens Assemblies (CAs) to discuss and debate actions to mitigate Climate Change. CAs are a method being considered by local authorities and promoted by campaign groups such as Extinction Rebellion. They provide a mechanism for linking citizen deliberation with representative democracy, and are an innovative and rigorous way of feeding citizen input into policy making. They allow citizens to consider issues in depth, listening to experts and considering different stakeholder perspectives. There was lots of support for the idea of Citizens Assemblies amongst the public present at the event, evidencing a strong desire for citizens to be engaged in finding solutions to climate change.  The conversations started at the event are ongoing and are helping open up dialogue and two-way learning on this vital issue between the University, the community and local stakeholder groups such as public authorities, business and NGOs.       

Voter Registration Pilot Project - Summer/ Autumn 2018. Youth Voter Registration: Exploring Barriers, Understanding Triggers

This seedcorn project sought to engage different stakeholders to generate lessons about how best to encourage and support voter registration amongst young people. It was funded from the University's Internal ADR Open Innovation fund, with a view to developing a larger research proposal to the ESRC which is currently underway. The pilot project included meetings with local authorities, Exeter University, the Cabinet Office, and young people. Focus groups were conducted with young people, both university students at Exeter and college/ school pupils from Devon, to explore their understandings and experiences of voter registration and to generate findings on how best to design interventions to be tested in the field as part of a larger research project with direct policy implications.   

This project is being developed collaboratively with a multi-university academic team - Alistair Clark and Emily Rainsford (Newcastle University), Gabriel Katz (Exeter University) and Stuart Wilks-Heeg (Liverpool University), and with local authorities and universities.

Giving Time: A Learning Event on Fostering Civic Engagement (ESRC Project) - Nov 2015

In Nov 2015 along with the National Association for Neighbourhood Management I co-organised a one day learning event with 70 Local Government and Third Sector Practitioners and fellow academics Prof Peter John (PI, UCL), Prof Oliver James (Exeter), Prof Gerry Stoker (Southampton), Liz Richardson (Mancester) and Dr Matt Ryan (Southampton) as part of the ESRC 'Giving Time' Project.

The day was a lively exchange of ideas and best practices about how best to encourage volunteering, sparked off with key research findings from field experiments we conducted as part of the ESRC Giving Time project. Our experiments attempted to work out how to boost volunteering amongst Older People, Students, Housing Association Residents, and how to encourage greater diversity amongst candidates standing for parish council elections.

The experiments used 'social information', ie information about what other people contribute, and other 'nudges' informed by psychological theory and behavioural economics. We focused on distilling key msessages from the research to inform practice amongst organisations trying to enhance volunteering.

This was a two way street as practitioners were able to give ideas about future experiments and help us interpret our findings as well as explaining what the findings meant to them. We had lively debates about using randomised controlled trials to inform practice and the use of Extreme Citizen Science as a form of citizen contribution to the public good. Guest academics and practitioners including Prof Muki Haklay (UCL), and Justin Davis-Smith (NCVO, now CASS Business Scbool) contributed keynote speeches.

See the live tweets from practitioners engaged in the Learning Event here:

https://storify.com/BenYMLee/giving-time-can-volunteers-be-nudged

And blogs from keynote speakers: http://blogs.casa.ucl.ac.uk/category/giving-time/ and https://povesham.wordpress.com/?s=giving+time.

Personalisation and Choice in Health and Social care - Feb 2015

In Feb 2015 with Devon County Council I organised a Research Sandpit and Learning Event attended by a group of over twenty health and social care service users, practitioners from Devon County Council and locally based Voluntary Sector and Infrastructure Organisations, as well as fellow academics from Exeter.

The aim of the day was to think through strategies for researching ways of supporting service users to access information and make choices regarding health and social care in the context of Personal Budgets and the 2014 Care Act. Key findings from research were discussed and practitioners and service users gave their views on how they could best be supported. The event was a great opportunity for practitioners to engage with one another and to discover what different organisations were doing to facilitate service user choice, and a chance to hear about cutting edge research on advice, information and choice.

The event was funded by The University of Exeter's Catalyst Fund with support and assistance from Devon County Council.

Modules taught

• POL2120 - Democratic Innovations, Deliberation and Public Policy
• POL3040 - Dissertation
• POLM014M - MPA Applied Studies
• POLM227M - Behavioural Public Policy and Administration
• POLM237M - Collaborative and Participatory Governance

Biography

I'm a Senior Lecturer in Politics at Exeter, specalising in public policy & administration, with particular interests in enviornmental policy, behavioural public policy/ administration, and citizen particiaption in the policy process. I've previously held a number of research fellow positions at Exeter, Southampton and the Peninsula Medical School. I'm passionate about using the vast array of tools, theories and methods that the social and political sciences have to offer to help address pressing social, political and environmental problems. 

I am a fellow of the Higher Education Academy and convene modules on political and civic engagement, public policy and public administration. I particularly enjoy teaching approaches which incoporate inquiry based learning and other forms of active classroom learning. I currently coordinate the MPA with Applied Studies Programme, the Politics MRes programme, and supervise undergradute and postgraduate dissertation students as well as supervising doctoral students. 

I'm an officer and trustee of the UK Association for Public Administration (UKAPA) (previously PAC), with a focus on teaching and learning. 

In my spare time, I enjoy organic farming, fiddle playing, and hanging out with my family and lurchers in the depths of Mid Devon.