José Manuel Ruano de la Fuente is a Full Professor in the Department of Political and Administrative Sciences, Complutense University of Madrid. He teaches in the Bachelor’s Degree in Public Management and Administration and in the Master’s Degree in Government and Public Administration at the Complutense University of Madrid and has been a visiting professor at several European and American universities. He has held several positions in university academic management, including Vice Dean of the Faculty of Political Science and Sociology (2002-2006) and Director of the Advanced Center for Studies in Management, Analysis, and Evaluation (2015-2017). Since 2010, he has been the Coordinator of the Master’s Degree in Government and Public Administration at the UCM.

His main research interests are local government, public policy analysis, decentralization processes, and state reform. He co-directs the Complutense University research group “Policy Design: Transfer and Social Innovation” (www.ucm.es/politis); he is co-director of the Permanent Study Group “Local Governance and Democracy” within the European Group of Public Administration (EGPA); and Vice-President, as well as Chair of its Scientific Council, of EUROPA (Regular University Entretiens pour l’Administration en Europe), an international NGO with the status of collaborating entity of the Council of Europe (https://www.europaong.org/).

He has participated in numerous national and international research projects. He is currently the Principal Investigator for Spain on the Democratic Urban Development in the Digital Age (DEMUDIG) project, funded by the Research Council of Norway. (https://cur.org.au/project/democratic-urban-development-in-the-digital-age/).