Dovilė Rimkutė is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Public Administration. Her research interests cover a range of regulatory governance topics, however, risk regulation and bureaucratic reputation take a central role. Dovilė focuses on explaining regulatory agencies’ outputs, processes, and behaviour. In 2019, Dovilė received the prestigious NWO VENI grant for her project 'Risk Regulation in the European Regulatory State: Science-Based or Reputation-Induced?'. The project draws on bureaucratic reputation theory to explain differences in scientific outputs of regulatory agencies. The study uses machine learning techniques to analyze agencies’ (risk) communications.

More information about Dovile Rimkute

Dovilė Rimkutė is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Public Administration. Dovilė received her Ph.D. (Magna Cum Laude) in Political Science from the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) of Munich in 2016. Her PhD project was part of a Marie Curie scholarship for Early Stage Researchers (ESR) within the Multi-Disciplinary Initial Training Network (ITN) focusing on the Inter-Institutional Cooperation in the EU (INCOOP). 

Dovilė obtained her Research Master’s Diploma in Public Administration and Organisational Science at the Utrecht University School of Governance (USBO) in the Netherlands (2009-2011). In 2012, her M.Sc. thesis was nominated for the best Master’s dissertation prize in political science by the Dutch and Flemish Political Science Association (NKWP Daniel Heinsiusprijs). 

Research

Dovilė’s research interests cover a range of regulatory governance topics, however, risk regulation and bureaucratic reputation take a central role. Dovilė focuses on explaining regulatory agencies’ outputs (e.g., scientific risk assessments), processes (e.g., adherence to legal proceedings), and behaviour (e.g., response to grave public allegations). Theoretically, she focuses on bureaucratic reputation theory and its explanatory power against long-established theoretical approaches. 

In 2019, Dovilė received the prestigious VENI grant for her project “Risk Regulation in the European Regulatory State: Science-Based or Reputation-Induced?”, funded by the NWO Innovational Research Incentives Scheme. In the four-year project, Dovilė focuses on risk regulation that concerns the timely provision of credible solutions to severe societal threats. The project draws on bureaucratic reputation theory as a novel perspective to explain differences in scientific outputs of regulatory agencies. The study uses machine learning techniques to analyze agencies’ (risk) communications. 

Dovilė’s academic articles have been published in top-ranked public administration and political science journals, such as Governance, Public Administration, Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of Common Market Studies. She contributed to books “The Institutions of the European Union”, “The Handbook on Regulatory Authorities”, “The Politics of Public Administration” published with Oxford University Press and Edward Elgar Publishing.

Dovilė’s scholarly work has a demonstrated policy impact. She, for instance, conducted a study on the risk regulation of pesticides commissioned by The European Parliamentary Research Service to provide the European Parliament (EP) with evidence-based recommendations on how pesticide regulation (Regulation 1107/2009) could be improved. The results were presented and discussed at the EP committee meeting.

Dovilė is a daily supervisor (co-promotor) of PhD students working on EU agencies, accountability, and bureaucratic reputation. 

Publications