School of Law

Dates: January 2005 - December 2010

This study is a key component of the FP6 integrated project REFGOV: Reflexive Governance in the Public Interest that involves 28 partner institutions in Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Hungary, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and the UK.

REFGOV is studying a variety of types of governance, including traditional hierarchical structures, administered markets and quasi-markets, private and social insurance, fundamental rights, regulation by independent agencies, the regulation of capital markets, and self-regulation by normative or epistemic communities.

The focus of the project is on the role of reflexive learning processes in maintaining the public or 'general' interest across the whole range of such private and public enterprises and activities. It has particular reference to five material fields: Global Public Services, Services of General Interest, Corporate Governance, Fundamental Rights, and Institutional Frames for Markets.

The key policy question is how collective learning in these different contexts might better be organized in order to maximize the normative expectations of stakeholders (firms, public bodies, regulators, citizens, consumers, clients) on matters of public interest.

Peter Vincent-Jones is leading a team of researchers based in England, Wales, France, Hungary, and Italy investigating healthcare governance as part of the Services of General Interest subnetwork.