Prof. Dr. Hiroko Kudo is full professor of public policy and management at the Faculty of Law, Chuo University, Japan. She has been visiting professor at Bocconi University, University of Cagliari, among others. She has been working with various master and doctorate courses at Italian, German, Austrian, Hungarian, and Slovenian universities, and was visiting research fellow at Economic and Social Research Institute of the Cabinet Office of the Japanese Government and the German Research Institute for Public Administration Speyer.

Her main research topics include: governance theory, HRM and capacity development; multi-level governance; public service delivery; e-Government; and ICT and innovation policy. Her works include: How are Citizens Involved in Smart Cities?: Analysing citizen participation in Japanese "Smart Communities" (with B. Granier), Information Polity, Vol.21, no.1, (2016), and Building executive capacity in the Japanese Civil Service, in Andrew Podger and John Wanna (eds.), Sharpening the Sword of State, ANU Press. (forthcoming, 2017).