معرفی
Jan BOON is a Tenure Track Assistant Professor at Hasselt University's School of Social Sciences, based at Campus Hasselt's Faculty of Law Building (Office FR-4.11). He leads the Research group Research for Digitalisation, Diversity and Democracy and serves as President of the bachelor sociale wetenschappen examination board. His teaching portfolio includes Policy Analysis, Research Seminar, and Political Science courses for 2024-2026 academic years.
BOON's research centers on public sector dynamics with core emphases:
- Structural reforms and change management in public organizations
- Citizen participation mechanisms in democratic governance
- Reputation dynamics of public agencies through media and parliamentary lenses
- Chronic stress impacts on civil servants during workplace transformations
- Visual communication in spatial planning and infrastructure conflicts
His methodology blends machine learning, comparative analysis, and mixed-methods approaches to investigate organizational behavior and policy implementation.
Recent publication trends (2023-2025) reveal intensifying focus on the stress-reform nexus in public administration, where repetitive organizational changes trigger information overload and bullying incidents. Simultaneously, his work pioneers deliberative minipublic integration in representative democracies, examining how digital platforms reshape citizen co-creation in spatial planning through projects like Connected Communities.
BOON actively supervises doctoral research including Kseniia Obukhova's water governance study and Dries Van Doninck's 2024 dissertation on reform injuries. He currently leads four major projects: Redesiging democracy (2024-2027) exploring minipublic integration, Citizen Participation in Spatial Policy (2025), Connected Communities (2023), and Debris Spring School (2024-2025), securing significant research funding for democratic innovation.
The Research for Digitalisation, Diversity and Democracy group under his leadership develops frameworks for navigating digital transformation while ensuring inclusive policy-making. Current initiatives analyze how algorithmic governance affects marginalized communities and prototype participatory budgeting tools for Flemish municipalities, positioning the group at the forefront of democratic renewal research.
