Michael Di Francesco

Michael Di Francesco joined the Crawford School of Public Policy in November 2019 as Senior Lecturer in Policy and Governance, specialising in public sector management. He was previously Associate Professor in Public Sector Management and Director of the Case Program (John L. Alford Case Library), the world’s third largest public policy and management case library, at the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) and the University of New South Wales (UNSW). Michael has held academic appointments at the University of Melbourne, University of Sydney, and Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

Michael has published extensively in the areas of public budgeting, public financial management, organisational performance evaluation, public management policy, and Australian public administration. He has twice been a recipient of the Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA) Sam Richardson Award for the most influential or important article published in the Australian Journal of Public Administration (AJPA).

Michael also has extensive senior public sector experience. In 2019 he served as Assistant Secretary, Public Sector Reform at the Australian Department of Finance, and between 2003 and 2010 he was Principal Advisor in Financial Management Policy at NSW Treasury, where he led strategic budget, performance management and corporate governance reform across the general government sector. He has held many technical assistance appointments with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (advising finance and planning ministries in Poland, Brazil, Costa Rica, Sri Lanka and Vietnam), the World Bank (researching multiyear budget frameworks and advising finance ministries in Brazil, Indonesia and the Dominican Republic) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) (advising on provincial multiyear budget frameworks in the People’s Republic of China). Michael has advised on performance-based budget reform for the Australian Department of Finance and NSW Treasury, and in 2015 was appointed by the National Treasury of South Africa to an international panel of experts to evaluate its expenditure review program.

Michael has twice served as a Councillor with the NSW Division of IPAA, and he was an Editorial Board member of the AJPA for over a decade.

Research interests Michael’s broad areas of expertise are in public administration and public policy, with research interests in public sector management, public budgeting, public financial management, rule frameworks in public organizations, public management policy, Australian public administration, and Australian administrative history.