Hi everyone

My name is Anders Leth Nielsen and I started as a PhD student on the 1^st of February. I graduated from the Department of Political Science here at Aarhus University back in 2005(!) and I have worked as a “practitioner” since then – most of the time as a civil servant in the City of Aarhus. The past seven years I have been engaged in changing marginalised housing areas into more socially diverse areas. I feel very privileged - and very humble at the same time - to be able to come back and immerse myself into research.

My PhD project is about local government in implementation of new legislation. How can we understand the role of local government and the interplay between local and national government in policymaking and policy implementation processes? I have suggested to explore this through comparative studies of the implementation of the Danish “ghetto” legislation where a total of about 10 municipalities (covering some 15 marginalised areas) have been given the same task, but approach it very differently. Peter Bjerre Mortensen is my main supervisor and Søren Serritzlew is my co-supervisor.

A big thank you to those of you I have already met and talked to. Thank you for your genuine interest in my project and perspectives from my professional background. I look forward to continuing the dialogue and you can be certain, that I will always say yes to a cup of coffee and a chat. I am located in 1340-140.

On the personal side: I am married, have three children (14, 14 and almost 16) and live in Risskov. I enjoy cooking, baking, eating, drinking and all things related. Given this I can also be found running on the beach or in the forest to make sure my body does not collapse entirely with all these guilty pleasures 😊