Jorrit de Jong is a Fellow at the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. His research, teaching and consultancy focus on innovations in the public sector. From 2005 – 2007 he was the director of the Centre for Government Studies at Leiden University’s Campus the Hague. Before that he was founding director of United Knowledge, Ltd., an Amsterdam based internet and consulting firm for public sector organizations. Jorrit studied public administration and philosophy at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and a the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany.
As a researcher, he served on missions in Bangladesh, Japan, Canada, Denmark, Belgium, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, and the Netherlands. He co-founded the Kafka Brigade, a field research team investigating excessive bureaucracy, reporting directly to the Dutch Minister of Public Sector Reform. Jorrit has published on reinventing government, innovation, knowledge management, change management, and public services. He co-authored the book, The State of Access: Success and Failure of Democracies in Creating Equal Opportunities, which will be published by Brookings Institution Press in 2008.
As a consultant and a trainer, Jorrit has worked for numerous public sector and non-profit orgranizations. He is specialized in simulation games on organizational and institutional change. Jorrit has taught the Masters course Public Adminstration and Informatization at Leiden University as well as many executive education programs, including the international program, Innovations in Governance (in association with the Ash Institute).