The 2nd Street-Level Bureaucracy Conference, which is going to take place in Copenhagen on the 21st-22nd of June 2017, is getting closer. The deadline for submitting abstracts has now been surpassed and we received nothing less than 54 abstracts from a total of 83 authors. Overall, the lecturers are of 13 different nationalities including countries as far away as Israel and USA. Among our guests, you will find the LISES project Advisory Board members who are some of the most prominent international scholars in the field of street-level research, employment and social policies: Professor Michael Lipsky (Georgetown University), Associate Professor Evelyn Brodkin (University of Chicago), Associate Professor Rik Van Berkel (Utrecht University) & Senior Associate Professor Sharon Wright (University of Glasgow).

The themes of the conference focus on the relationship between the policy’s design and the organization and implementation of the efforts of individual employees in the welfare state’s frontline. The structure of the presentations at the conference are based on the LISES project’s five main theses including a discussion of the relation between research knowledge and front-line practice.

The conference will serve as a forum for sharing and discussing the latest research in areas such as street-level organization, client participation and knowledge sharing between research and practice. The participants will discuss how street-level organizations can cope with frequent changing policies, how client participation and empowerment can be enhanced and how scientific research can inform and improve social work practice.

The goal is to share the preliminary results and reflections of the LISES project with leading international experts in the field. At the same time, the hope is that presentation and discussion from the conference can inspire and develop further work in the LISES project.