GovLove - A Podcast About Local Government
Jul 10, 2026 · 53 min · 15 segments
Dr. Elizabeth Linos, Professor of Public Policy and Management at the Harvard Kennedy School and Faculty Director at The People Lab, joined the podcast to discuss the Public Servant Project an effort…
Elizabeth LinosGuest
Ben KittelsonHost
And so when I set up the People Lab, which is our research team here at the Harvard Kennedy School, I was really trying to think about what are the elements of a functioning public sector? If we say we're going to invest in the institution because we think it matters, because we think that you can't really solve social challenges if you don't have a functioning public sector, what would you invest in? And so that's led to three big buckets of research.
So we think a lot about how to recruit, retain and support government workers.
And early on that was work on how to, for example, recruit a more diverse police force or how to think about bringing in more talent into government.
And what does it mean to have workplaces where employees can stay motivated and engaged? Then we have a second bucket of research that's around the nuts and bolts of service delivery.
So a lot of that work started with how do we make it easier for people to interact with their government? How do we streamline kind of the administrative burden of having to access a social safety net program or take up a new government service? Now we're starting to think about how that then links to questions of trust and trust in government.
But there's a whole bucket of research that is really about how do we make sure that the experience of interacting with government is a positive one.
And in my ideal world, those two areas of research are totally connected, right? If we invest in the people of government, then they're able to deliver services more effectively.
And then we have a third bucket of research that's a little bit more meta that is thinking about why is it that even though we're producing a lot of policy-relevant research in the world, oftentimes it's not getting adopted by government? What are the barriers that governments face, the organizational ones, the behavioral ones, and how do we help reduce those barriers so that when we do have some evidence about what works, we can actually think about adoption at scale? So that's thinking about kind of the bigger evidence-based policymaking community and how to make sure that that's more closely linked to what government leaders need to be able to do their work.
Where like the, at least in my book, the important part is starting with the practitioner, not with the academic.
So what do governments actually need? And what questions are they asking? And how can academia help answer those questions.
There's lots there I want to follow up on, but we'll link to the public servant project so folks can find out more and learn about some of your research.
And so when I set up the People Lab, which is our research team here at the Harvard Kennedy School, I was really trying to think about what are the elements of a functioning public sector? If we say we're going to invest in the institution because we think it matters, because we think that you can't really solve social challenges if you don't have a functioning public sector, what would you invest in? And so that's led to three big buckets of research.
So we think a lot about how to recruit, retain and support government workers.
And early on that was work on how to, for example, recruit a more diverse police force or how to think about bringing in more talent into government.
And what does it mean to have workplaces where employees can stay motivated and engaged? Then we have a second bucket of research that's around the nuts and bolts of service delivery.
So a lot of that work started with how do we make it easier for people to interact with their government? How do we streamline kind of the administrative burden of having to access a social safety net program or take up a new government service? Now we're starting to think about how that then links to questions of trust and trust in government.
But there's a whole bucket of research that is really about how do we make sure that the experience of interacting with government is a positive one.
And in my ideal world, those two areas of research are totally connected, right? If we invest in the people of government, then they're able to deliver services more effectively.
And then we have a third bucket of research that's a little bit more meta that is thinking about why is it that even though we're producing a lot of policy-relevant research in the world, oftentimes it's not getting adopted by government? What are the barriers that governments face, the organizational ones, the behavioral ones, and how do we help reduce those barriers so that when we do have some evidence about what works, we can actually think about adoption at scale? So that's thinking about kind of the bigger evidence-based policymaking community and how to make sure that that's more closely linked to what government leaders need to be able to do their work.
Where like the, at least in my book, the important part is starting with the practitioner, not with the academic.
So what do governments actually need? And what questions are they asking? And how can academia help answer those questions.
There's lots there I want to follow up on, but we'll link to the public servant project so folks can find out more and learn about some of your research.
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