During the IASIA 2024 Conference, held in Bloemfontein, South Africa, from July 1 to 5, 2024, the annual awards ceremony celebrated distinguished contributions to the field of public administration.
The O.P. Dwivedi Award 2024 for outstanding contributions to public administration and global public policy was given to Prof. Juraj Nemec (Masaryk University). This accolade recognizes Prof. Nemec's significant impact on advancing public administration practices worldwide.
Prof. Nemec is a distinguished professor at the Department of Public Economics, Faculty of Economics and Administration, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. His professional engagements include roles such as President of NISPAcee and Vice-President of the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration. He has also advised governments on public administration reforms and public procurement systems, notably co-drafting Slovakia's first public procurement law.
The Donald C. Stone Award 2024 was awarded to Prof. Luis Solari de la Fuente (Fellow American College of Physicians). This award honors Prof. Solari for his dedicated efforts in promoting the well-being and advancement of IASIA.
Prof. Solari is a prominent Peruvian politician, physician, and academic. He has served as the Prime Minister, Minister of Health, and Congressman of Peru. His contributions to public administration and health sciences are widely acknowledged. He is also an Honorary Member of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco and holds several prestigious awards, including the Order "El Sol del Perú" – Great Cross.
Pierre DeCelles Award 2023: A Historic Double Recognition
For the first time in IASIA's history, the Pierre DeCelles Award was given to two outstanding papers. This prestigious recognition, awarded for the best papers at the IASIA Conference 2023 in Manila, Philippines, highlighted exceptional contributions to the field of public administration.
The award went to Prof. Dr. Michiel S. DeVries from Radboud University, The Netherlands, for his paper titled "Taking The Fast Lane From Trust To Distrust: A Reconstruction of the Process Through Which Meta Had to Back Off from Building a Hyperscale Data Center in the Netherlands." This work was commended for its rigorous analysis and significant scholarly impact.
And the award was also granted to Ms. Sayaka Sugiyama and Dr. So Morikawa from the University of Tokyo Faculty of Engineering, Japan, for their paper "A Study of Managerial Decision-Making Bias in Task Planning Under Uncertainty: Toward Enhancement of Bureaucratic Organizational Capacity."
This dual recognition underscores the importance and quality of their research and acknowledges the annual IASIA Conference as a significant platform for knowledge production and sharing in the broad field of public governance studies.
Additionally, the Pierre DeCelles Award for 2022 was presented to Dr. Mary Mangai and Dr. Tyanai Masiya for their paper "Decision Making and Stakeholders’ Experience of the Innovative Ways of Co-Producing Neighborhood Security in Johannesburg, South Africa," presented at the IASIA Conference 2022 in Rabat, Morocco.
These three awards reflect IASIA’s dedication to celebrating excellence in public administration and promoting outstanding scholarly work, following the association's mission of improving public governance research, education, and practice.