External communication pool of the Dutch Government visits CPL
On Thursday evening, 7 December, the Centre for Professional Learning (CPL) gave the government's external communication pool a glimpse of what there is to learn about Public Affairs and the scientific research that is being done about it within the Faculty of Governance & Global Affairs.
With a very current case, Gerard Breeman and Arco Timmermans opened the meeting and discussions were held about the situation regarding the independence of the research of the WODC (Research and Documentation Centre); what exactly happened ?, from which sides can we view the case?, and how would or should different parties react?
They then received a mini-lecture on the theoretical frameworks that are at play and can be applied in a case, such as the one about WODC, and Gerard Breeman and Arco Timmermans further explained their own research on the politics of attention. Charts about the amount of attention for topics in each coalition agreement since 1963 and the relation with the questions asked in parliament were particularly appreciated.
Afterwards, the communication professionals among others discussed with each other what they thought of the meeting; 'It's nice to get a theoretical framework for what we do every day in practice', 'There are interesting things discussed, also things that bring me new ideas and things I want to do something with', and 'Can I have the slides? '. All in all a successful meeting!
The research and graphs of Breemans and Timmermans can be found on:
http://www.comparativeagendas.net/netherlands
