Florian Keppeler

Associate Professor, King Frederik Center for Public Leadership
Department of Political Science, Aarhus University

Affiliated Scholar, The People Lab, Harvard Kennedy School

This site is being rebuilt. The previous version was lost in an incident at the hosting provider in August 2026. The full site, including the complete publication list, teaching, and public engagement, is being restored. The current CV and publication list is linked below.

Research

I am an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, and work at the King Frederik Center for Public Leadership. I am also an affiliated scholar at The People Lab, Harvard Kennedy School. Much of my work focuses on the people who deliver public services: how to attract them, how to support them, and how AI can help public managers make better decisions. I co-design studies with government partners to ensure that research is useful to practitioners and adopted at scale.

My research uses large-scale field experiments and causal inference methods. It focuses on three topics:

Recruiting, selecting, and retaining the public workforce
The role of artificial intelligence (AI) in public policy and government
The motivation of citizens to contribute to public goods

Selected publications

How Do Strikes and Lockouts Affect Applications to Danish Public Service Professional Education Programs? A Synthetic Control Analysis Heide, C., & Keppeler, F. (2026). Public Administration.

How Ensembling AI and Public Managers Improves Decision-Making Keppeler, F., Borchert, J., Pedersen, M. J., & Nielsen, V. L. (2025). Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.

Financial Incentives for COVID-19 Vaccination: A Cluster Randomized Clinical Trial Ternovski, J., Jilke, S., Keppeler, F., & Vogel, D. (2025). JAMA Network Open.

Selected projects

TRUST-AI2026 to 2030

Citizen trust in AI government. The project delivers new knowledge to guide a responsible implementation of AI, one that builds and secures citizen trust. Independent Research Fund Denmark, 6.3 million DKK. Co-Principal Investigator, with PI Mogens Jin Pedersen.

MORE2024 to 2028

Megastudy on recruitment. The project researches how to sustainably recruit, select, and retain skilled international nursing staff. Carlsberg Foundation, 9.1 million DKK. Work-package lead, with PI Christian B. Jacobsen and Diana Galos.

CV and publication list

Download CV and publications (PDF, June 2026)

Profiles

Contact

Department of Political Science, Aarhus University
Bartholins Allé 7, Building 1340
8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
florian@ps.au.dk