Prof. M.R. Rutgers (1958) has been appointed Professor of Philosophy of Public Administration in the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Amsterdam (UvA).

Mark Rutgers investigates normative and conceptual questions relating to public administration. Over the next few years he will be focusing on the origins and significance of public values, also in connection with the special nature of the public sector. His particular interest lies in the values characterising public administration, such as constitutionality, division of powers and democratic legitimacy. In his research he is examining whether values such as efficiency, integrity and loyalty carry special significance within public administration, as well as the links between values, including between public and private values. Rutgers approaches his research from an interdisciplinary angle, combining philosophical, social-scientific and historical perspectives. A case in point is a project in which he is applying this perspective and drawing together the aforementioned themes to examine the development and relevance of the oath of office.

Rutgers has been Professor of Public Administration at Leiden University since 2002. Prior to this he worked as a lecturer, researcher and university lecturer and later senior university lecturer in the same department. Between 1998 and 2003 he led the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) pioneer project ‘The Renaissance of Public Administration'. He was named a fellow of the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies in Wassenaar in 2007-2008, and is one of the founders of the Copenhagen Public Value Consortium, an association that joins scholars from around the world in conducting comparative research on modern-day public values. Rutgers is also a member of the editorial boards of various academic journals, including Administrative Theory & Praxis, Public Administration Review and Administration & Society, and an editor of the textbook De Bestuurlijke Kaart van Nederland (‘Mapping Public Administration in the Netherlands', first edition 1999). He has also been appointed Dean of the Graduate School of Social Sciences for the 2010-2015 term.