Civil servants in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, are being invited to complete a short survey on their perceptions of institutional memory to support public policy research.
The ability to remember past policies and learn from their success or failure is a core function of a permanent civil service. But despite this, very little empirical data exist on the current state of institutional memory, or the causes and consequences of diminished memory on policymaking.
Under the leadership of Professor Dennis C. Grube, the Bennett Institute is part of an international team of researchers – headed by the University of Queensland – comparatively examining institutional memory and amnesia in the civil services of the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
The project relies on civil servants across all three jurisdictions completing a short survey on institutional memory and amnesia. Completion of the survey will lead to findings about how memory loss affects public servants and recommendations about how agencies can better store and retrieve important lessons from the past.
The survey takes around five minutes to complete, does not ask any political or controversial questions and all responses are de-identified.
The team is seeking responses from all levels and types of civil servants, and from across a range of government departments and agencies.
Find out more and take the survey.
Image: “Stacked filing cabinets” by alex_ford is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the Bennett Institute for Public Policy.
