The research was carried out between September 2014 and December 2015 by the Institute for Government and Public Policy (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) and the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service (New York University).
Marc Parés is a geographer and political scientist holding a Marie Curie Fellow funded by the European Union. He is a postdoc researcher in the Institute for Government and Public Policy (IGOP) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain), where he leads the Research Group on Urban Governance, Commons, Internet and Social Innovation (www.urgocis.net). His research has been focused on the fields of Urban Governance, Citizen Participation, Urban Political Ecology, Environmental Management and Social Innovation. He has published in journals like Urban Studies, Urban Affairs Review, European Planning Studies or the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
Sonia Ospina is a Professor of Public Management and Policy at the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. A sociologist by training, her interest in the participatory, inclusive and collaborative dynamics of democratic governance has produced research on social change leadership, social innovation and accountability, both in communities and in public systems. An expert in qualitative research, she works in the United States and Latin America. Among her books are Illusions of Opportunity: Employee Expectations and Workplace Inequality (1996), Results-oriented Evaluation for a Modern and Democratic Public Management: Latin American Experiences (2003, in Spanish; co-authored), and Advancing Relational Leadership Research: A Conversation Across Perspectives (2012, co-edited).
Joan Subirats is a Professor of Political Science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and researcher and director of the doctoral program of the Institute of Government and public policy at the UAB. His fields of research include the analysis of public policies, the democratic innovation, public participation and local and regional government. He has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor of the Prince of Asturias Chair at Georgetown University (2002-2003). He has also been visiting professor at the universities of California (Berkeley), CIDE-Mexico, New York and Rome. He has published numerous books, among them urban policies in Spain (2011), public policy analysis and management (2008), poverty and social exclusion in Spain (2004), twenty years of autonomous regions in Spain. The laws, public policies, institutions and public opinion (2002) or territory and Government (2001).
Cliff Frasier is a fifth year doctoral student at NYU Wagner, where he studies political organizations and management. His main research interests involve how party systems accommodate niche parties and interest group coalitions in the American states, and he also researches links between partisanship and inequality. Prior to joining NYU Wagner, Cliff worked for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) on issue campaigns and in communications. During the 2009-2010 Healthcare Reform Campaign, he served as SEIU’s coordinator aligning national faith-based organizations to pass healthcare reform. Cliff’s past organizational experience encompasses religious, nonprofit, for-profit, public health, and labor organizations. He holds a Masters in Public Administration through the National Urban Fellowship at Baruch College, CUNY, as well as a Masters of Divinity from Harvard University.
Santiago Eizaguirre holds a PhD in Sociology (2012) and since 2013 is an assistant professor at the Deparment of Sociology of the University of Barcelona. His main area of research focuses on urban sociology, paying special attention to social innovation, local development and democratic governance. He is specially interested in the interplay between public policies and citizenship practices overcoming social exclusion dynamics. His activities as a researcher include analysis and policy recommendations on strategical planning, local development, socially-cohesive educating cities, social and solidarity-based economies, co-production of public policies, and innovation in local democracy. Since 2008 he combines academic work with public consultancy. Between other related subjects his teaching activities include introduction to sociology, sociology of education and economic geography, in different university degrees and learning environments.
Research Assistants: Eduard Cabré, Cristian Carreño, Eugenia Lee, Rose Martínez and Haoyan Zhong