Samenvatting

How can public administration be of positive significance in contributing to major societal challenges? After fifty years, the Dutch Association for Public Administration (VB) takes stock of what has been achieved, offering an opportunity to look towards the future with hope. This essay revolves around the question of how public administration as an academic discipline can remain impactful in the next fifty years. This question is applied to a topic which seems to become more pressing day by day; digitalization and algorithmization of society. This essay is a plea for public administration that puts the public at its core again, and wherein public administration scholars engage with societal issues in an imaginative, explorative and playful way. Moreover, this essay serves as a space for personal reflections on a self-conscious discipline by a student who is at the brink of starting her career in this inspiring and challenging academic field.