## Notes from 09 March 2026 [[2026-03-08|← Previous note]] ┃ [[2026-03-10|Next note →]] Today I found a [funding call](https://bmds.bund.de/service/bekanntmachungen/foerderrichtlinie-staatsmodernisierung) published by the [[German Federal Ministry for Digital and State Modernization (BMDS)]] on March 5, 2026. It invites universities and research institutions to apply for up to €3 million over three years to provide research support for the implementation of the federal and cross-governmental modernization agendas. The funded project would review existing research on state modernization, identify international best practices and assess their transferability to Germany, gather stakeholder perspectives, and evaluate whether the reform measures are actually working. A central deliverable is the creation of a "competence center for state modernization" — a knowledge hub designed to outlast the funding period. Applications were due by April 2, 2026, with the project expected to start by June 1. The call covers five thematic areas: (i) reducing bureaucracy, (ii) better regulation, (iii) citizen- and business-centered services, (iv) forward-looking personnel development, and (v) efficient federal administration. This sits alongside a few other recent initiatives funding research on state capacity and public administration reform. - In the US, the [[Volcker Alliance]] launched the [[Accountability and Reform Research Consortium (ARRC)]], a cross-university collaborative building a real-time evidence base on how federal workforce changes affect service delivery and democratic governance as DOGE reshapes the federal government. - [[Coefficient Giving]]'s Abundance and Growth Fund is channeling philanthropic money into state capacity research as part of a broader thesis that institutional sclerosis creates artificial scarcity. - And the [[Recoding America Fund (RAF)]], chaired by [[Jennifer Pahlka]] and backed by $120 million over six years, has among other things funded the [[Niskanen Center]] and [[National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA)|NAPA]]'s State Human Resources and [[2026-04-05|Benchmarking Study]] — a comparative dataset on how US states manage civil service hiring, performance evaluation, and compensation that I've been using in my own work. Different initiatives, different scopes, different ideological starting points, but all treating the quality of public administration as a first-order problem that deserves sustained research funding. More of this, please. ___ Completely unrelated: I found this [[Public Sector Reform in the UK|UK civil service]] [meeting cost calculator](https://civilservicemeetingcost.lovable.app), and I love it! It reminded me of a [guy who posts fake Google Meet features](https://x.com/soren_iverson) that are funnier than they should be.