The research unit comprises twenty-five scholars working in seven projects at six German universities. Each project addresses one particular question on international public administration.

The unit is coordinated at LMU Munich (Z-Project), Christoph Knill serves as its speaker.

Styles
Christoph Knill (LMU Munich) and Stephan Grohs (University of  Administrative Sciences Speyer) analyse the specific administrative cultures and administrative styles of IPAs in their project, “Administrative Styles in International Public Administrations”.
Autonomy
Michael W. Bauer’s and Joern Ege’s (University of  Administrative Sciences Speyer) project, “The Consequences of Bureaucratic Autonomy for International Administrative Influence”, explores the degree of autonomy of various IPAs and develops a framework to explain variances in autonomy and the consequences of autonomy for policy-making in international organisations.
Expertise
The project headed by Andrea Liese and Per-Olof Busch (both University of Potsdam), “International public administrations as policy experts”, explores the determinants and consequences of the specific expertise assigned to IPAs.
Resource
Klaus H. Goetz  (LMU Munich) analyses the mobilization of resources in IPAs in his project, “Resource Mobilization in International Public Administrations: Strategies for the Financing of International Public Policy”.
Link
Arthur Benz’s (TU Darmstadt) project, “Linking National and International Administrations – Structures and Coordination” addresses the embeddedness of IPAs in architectures of multi-level governance.
Envipa
Helge Jörgens and Nina Kolleck (both Free University Berlin) examine the influence of one specific type of IPA, the convention secretariats involved in environmental policy-making, in the project, “Behind the Scenes: Understanding the Hidden Influence of Treaty Secretariats on International Environmental Policy-making”.
Evaluation
Steffen Eckhard (LMU Munich) addresses how IPAs use evaluation as administrative tool in policy-making strategies and, in doing so, how they compete with other stakeholders. The project seeks to clarify whether functionalist or political dynamics dominate IO policy-making: http://ipa-research.com/?page_id=691&preview=true.
Z-Project
Christoph Knill (LMU Munich) is the speaker of the research unit. Yves Steinebach (LMU Munich) is responsible for coordinating the unit with respect to its common research agenda, as well as data gathering and dissemination of findings: The Z-Project.