On March 26, 2018, Ruth Dixon, researcher from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, was invited by PKU Office of International Relations, Institute of State Governance Studies and Zhao Baoxu Fundation to make a speech in Liao Kaiyuan Building on "Coordination of Central, Devolved, and Local Government in the UK".

    Dr. Ruth Dixon received her master and doctor degrees from Cambridge University and Warwick University, and has conducted postdoctoral research at Oxford University. She is currently a research fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government and an academic fellow at the British Parliament from 2018-2019. Her main research areas are service quality and performance evaluation of public sector in central and local government. Her recent book with Christopher Hood, A Government that Worked Better and Cost Less?, won the 2015 Louis Brownlow Book Award from the American National Academy of Public Administration. She was also the first female winner of the MacKenzie Book Prize from the Political Studies Association.

    The lecture was chaired by Prof. Wang Puqu, Dean of the Institute of State Governance Studies. He extended a warm welcome to Dr. Ruth Dixon on behalf of PKU and said this lecture was the first of the Forum on State Governance series funded by PKU Lecture Program. The following two lectures will be of different themes.