Dr. Donald Moynihan, the J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Professor of Public Policy, has received the 2026 George Fredrickson Award for Career Contributions from the Public Management Research Association (PRMA) in recognition of his valuable contributions to the field.
Moynihan's work has been widely recognized for its impacts on public administration. The selection committee noted how Moynihan's research on performance management "reshaped how scholars and practitioners think about the use of performance information in public organizations, and his work on administrative burden has become one of the most generative research agendas in contemporary public administration - applied by scholars globally across welfare administration, voting access, and health policy, and influencing guidance from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget."
Moynihan has presented his research to policymakers and government officials around the world, including officials in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations. His writing and research have been cited in President Obama's and President Biden's budget proposals, OMB policy guidance under President Biden, as well as in leading media outlets such as the New York Times and the Atlantic.
He is a past president of both PMRA and the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM), co-director of the Better Government Lab, and author of the widely read Can We Still Govern? newsletter. Moynihan has received the 2026 Guggenheim Fellowship and the 2014 Kershaw Award from Mathematica and the APPAM, which honors outstanding scholars under the age of 40.
Established in 2005, the H. George Fredrickson Award has been conferred upon 17 recipients to date.
