Robert Lipinski

• Can the past still shape the present? In my research I try to find answer to this question by focusing on historical political economy. Specifically, I look at the role of historical events and processes on the contemporary politics in Europe. Among others, I study the persistent impact of foreign media on authoritarian states, effects of exogenous protest exposure, memory politics, and lasting impacts of border changes.
• Prior to joining DPIR, I've been involved in several projects pertaining to local governments and public administration management. I cooperated on them with researchers from University College London and the World Bank's Bureaucracy Lab, where I did my pre-doc. In that role I also contributed to the creation of a handbook on research methodology - "The Government Analytics Handbook: Leveraging Data to Strengthen Public Administration" (2023). I was also data analyst for the Global Survey of Public Servants project. My ongoing engagment in this field includes cooperations with the Inter-American Development Bank on public payroll indicators and with the World Bank's Public Institutions Unit on public capacity indicators.
• I graduated with First Class Honours from BSc in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at UCL. I also hold a Master's in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge.

Research

• Historical Political Economy
• Local governments
• Public Administration
• Causal Analysis
• Surveying

Previous work

• World Bank Public Institutions' Unit, Short-term Consultant (2025-2026)
• World Bank Bureaucracy Lab, Pre-doctoral Researcher (2020-2025)
• UCL Department of Political Science - Research Assistant (2018-2021)

Working papers

• Over the Finnish Line. Political Economy of Foreign Media in Autocracies on the Example of Finnish TV in Soviet Estonia | DPhil thesis paper
  • Awarded Jacques Rupnik Prize for best presentation during the EUI Workshop on Political Behaviour in Central and Eastern Europe (2024)
  • Awarded Graduate Dissertation Grant by the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies (AABS) (2024)
• Chain Reaction. The Democratizing Effects of the 1989 Baltic Way Demonstration in Estonia | DPhil thesis paper
• Historical Palimpsest. Frequency of Border Changes and the Long-term Economic and Political Development in Europe | DPhil thesis paper

• Enslaving Memory. Re-framing the episodes of national shame and modern-day racial attitudes in Britain | DPhil thesis paper

   

Work in progress

• Homokrateia. Historical Ties and the Contemporary Connections among European Regions
• Resettlement 101. The Persistent Consequences of the Soviet-era Displacements under the ’101st
  Kilometre’ Rule

• Evaluating the Influence of Local Service Quality Monitoring on Citizens and Public Officials: Key
  Findings from an Empirical Study in Estonia. 2023. Washington, DC: World Bank (with Rogger D.,
  Khurshid, A. and Väärsi K.

   

Publications

• Creating Public Payroll Indicators: A Methodological Guide (with Schuster C., and Bautista S.N.)
• Motivating Improved Healthcare Using Patient Contracts. Evidence from an RCT in Estonia. (with
  Croke K., Daniels B., Rogger D.)
• A Tale of Two Contexts: The Ukrainian and Afghan Refugee Crises in Canada and the UK. 2023.
  Dalhousie University University of Oxford (with Bejan R., Mallet-Garcia M., Do C., and Aviles, V.)
• Determining Sample Sizes: How Many Public Officials Should Be Surveyed? Chapter 20 in: Rogger, D.;
  Schuster, C. (eds.) 2023. The Government Analytics Handbook: Leveraging Data to Strengthen Public
  Administration. Washington, DC World Bank (with Rogger D., Schuster C., and Wittels A.)
• Designing Survey Questionnaires: Which Survey Measures Vary, and for Whom? Chapter 21 in:
  Rogger, D.; Schuster, C. (eds.) 2023. The Government Analytics Handbook: Leveraging Data to Strengthen Public
  Administration. Washington, DC: World Bank. (with Rogger D., Schuster C., and Wittels A.)
• Designing Survey Questionnaires: To What Types of Survey Questions Do Public Servants Not
  Respond? Chapter 22 in: Rogger, D.; Schuster, C. (eds.) 2023. The Government Analytics Handbook:
  Leveraging Data to Strengthen Public Administration. Washington, DC: World Bank. (with Rogger D., and
  Schuster C.)
• Interpreting Survey Findings: Can Survey Results Be Compared across Organizations and
  Countries? Chapter 24 in: Rogger, D.; Schuster, C. (eds.) 2023. The Government Analytics Handbook:
  Leveraging Data to Strengthen Public Administration. Washington, DC: World Bank. (with Meyer-Sahling J-H.,
  Mikkelsen K.S., and Schuster C.)
• Diversity or Decolonization? Searching for the Tools to Dismantle the ‘Master’s House’. London
  Review of Education 19(1), pp. 1-18. 2021, (with Arshad M., Dada R., Elliott C., Kalinowska I. Khan M., Vassanth
  V., Bhandalm J., de Quinto Schneider M., Georgis, I., and Shilston F.)

Projects

• Research Associate | Payroll Analytics in Latin America | Inter-American Development Bank
• Mentor | Government Analytics Fellowship | World Bank
• EDI Associate | Diversification and decolonisation of curricula/disciplines project | Social Sciences Division, University of Oxford
• Research Assistant | ConflictNET project | The Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP), University of Oxford
• Graduate Researcher | A Tale of Two Context Project: The Ukrainian and Afghan Refugee Crises in Canada and the UK | University of Oxford's Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) and Dalhousie University

Teaching

Graduate Teaching Assistant

• Intermediate Statistics | Department of Politics and International Relations | Michaelmas 2023-2024
• Causal Inference |Department of Politics and International Relations | Hillary 2024
• Research Design for Social Science | Oxford Internet Institute | Hilary 2023-2025

Other teaching experience:

• Floreat Humanities outreach programme for Year 12 students | Balliol College | Trinity 2023-2025
• Discovery outreach programme for Year 10 students | Balliol College | Trinity 2023 & 2024

Awards & Recognitions

• World Bank's ECA Academy Award Winner for the paper "Motivating Improved Healthcare Using Patient Contracts. Evidence from an RCT in Estonia", which was selected from 30+ papers in an annual competition by the Office of the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) Chief Economist that seeks to identify the best new policy-relevant research on ECA from across the World Bank Group
• Jacques Rupnik Prize for the best paper by a doctoral researcher at the EUI Workshop on Political Behaviour in Central and Eastern Europe for DPhil paper "Over the Finnish Line. Understanding the Role of Foreign Media in the Democratic Transition in Estonia" | 2024
• Graduate Dissertation Grant of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies | 2024
• ORLEN Bone Fide Scholarship | 2023/24 & 2024/25
• World Bank Development Economics Vice Presidency team award for “Managing pandemic government through surveying public servants” | 2021
• Nomination for the UCL Faculty Undergraduate Scholarship for Excellence, UCL Faculty of Social & Historical Sciences | 2018
• Scholarship of the Prime Minister of Poland | 2014

Languages

Polish (native); Spanish (fluent); German (intermediate); French (intermediate); Russian (basic); Mandarin Chinese (basic)