Simon Niemeyer

Simon Niemeyer is Professor and Director of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra (which moved from The Australian National University in 2014). He is also the lead researcher for the Global Citizens' Assembly project (GlobalCA.com), as well as lead investigator on an ARC funded project conducting a meta-analysis of democratic deliberation. His overall research covers the broad fields of deliberative democracy and environmental governance, with a focus on political reasoning and public opinion formation. His empirical research has contributed to major theoretical insights in deliberative democracy, with practical implications informing improvements the broader democratic process and the role of deliberative minipublics, such as citizens' assemblies. He completed his PhD at the Australian National University and since then has been the recipient of a number of Australian Research Council Awards — including ARC Postdoctoral and Future Fellowships. He has led major international research projects, both in Australia and overseas, most recently based in Sweden at Uppsala University on citizens and political deliberation. His more recent research involves building a theoretical model of deliberative political reasoning, backed by an empirical method and data collected over a 20 year period. The aim is to apply the method to assessing democratic systems and how institutional settings improve citizen deliberation, as an antidote to reductive populism, anti-science and declining trust in politics.