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The Comparative Political Adviser Survey (COMPAS) is the first survey-based comparative research on former political staff in 14 countries: Slovakia, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Denmark, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Portugal, the UK, Ireland, and Australia.
It aims to compare the roles, skills, attitudes, careers and relationships of political staff across different jurisdictions. This will be a unique resource that informs future ministerial advisers research.
Australian chief investigator:
The Australian researcher for the COMPAS project is Dr Maria Maley, Senior Lecturer, School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University. Her published research can be seen here.
International core team COMPAS
- Professor Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen - Aarhus University, Denmark
- Professor Kristoffer Kolltveit - University of Oslo, Norway
- Dr Erik-Jan van Dorp - Utrecht University, the Netherlands
- Professor Richard Shaw - Massey University, New Zealand
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Types of questions in the survey:
• Patterns of contact – how often you have contact with a range of actors
• Whose interests are in mind when you make decisions
• Last job before first recruited as an adviser
• Policy specialist or policy generalist
• Top 3 skills/resources for a political adviser to have
• How important was it to give different types of advice
• Relationships with public servants
• Whether the job opened up or limited future career opportunities
• Working conditions of staffers
Ethics:
The survey is undergoing human ethics approval in Europe and in Australia (Protocol Number: H/2025/0153). All data will be anonymised, de-identified and stored in Norway in compliance with European and international privacy (GDPR) rules on information, informed consent and secure data storage. Note: With a potential sample population of over 3000 people, it would be extremely difficult to identify respondents from their answers.
If you are interested in participating in the study, please contact Dr Maria Maley.
If you participate, later in 2025, you will receive an email from the University of Oslo with a link to the survey. You can then choose to answer the survey or not. The names and email addresses of the former advisers who participate will be securely stored and not linked to the answers in the survey.
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