Dr. Louis Meuleman is policy and governance advisor, manager and trainer on (sustainability) governance and metagovernance, public administration reform and sustainability transitions. He is Rapporteur (2019) and Member (2018-2021) of the UN Committee of Experts on Public Administration (CEPA) (2018-2021). He works at the European Commission, DG Environment, in Brussels, as coordinator Environmental Implementation Review and European Semester. Louis has an MsC in environmental biology and a Phd in public administration and is visiting professor at the Public Governance Institute of the University of Leuven (Belgium), senior fellow at the Center for Governance and Sustainability of the University of Massachusetts Boston (USA) and research associate at the Public Administration & Policy Group of Wageningen University & Research (Netherlands). His experience as public manager at subnational, national and European level covers 35 years. In addition, he publishes on topical governance challenges and has presented or moderated at a range of UN conferences in the USA / New York, the Bahamas, Korea, Switzerland and Italy.
Being a civil servant, he is currently not involved in advisory/consultancy projects, but as a ‘reflexive practitioner’ he continues to participate in scholarly and other discussions on the quality of governance, sustainable development and impact assessment.
Louis’ PhD thesis (2008) focuses on metagovernance: how to create and manage situationally successful combinations of hierarchical, network and market styles of governance. He concludes that it is not one style, but the optimal governance mixture that works in practice, and that what works where depends among others on national/regional/local cultures and traditions.
Relevant & recent publications include:
Meuleman, L. (2018), Metagovernance for sustainability: A framework for implementing the SDGs (Routledge, London).
Promoting policy and institutional coherence for the SDGs (Meuleman, L. 2018). From PPP to ABC: A new partnership approach for the SDGs (Meuleman, L., Strandenaes, J.G. and Niestroy, I. 2016); Teaching Silos to Dance: A Condition to Implement the SDGs (Niestroy, I. and Meuleman, L. 2016); Common But Differentiated Governance: A Metagovernance Approach to Make the SDGs Work (Meuleman, L.; Niestroy, I. (2015); Sustainability 2015, 7, 12295-12321); Cultural diversity and sustainability metagovernance (In: L. Meuleman (Ed.) (2012), Transgovernance: Advancing Sustainability Governance. Heidelberg: Springer Verlag, pp 37-81).