Build public data assets
Acquire, clean, connect, document, and preserve administrative and labor-market data for reproducible analysis.
About CLEAR
A research enterprise built around public service.
CLEAR combines rigorous scholarship, shared data infrastructure, experiential learning, and civic partnerships to strengthen the people and institutions of government.
Our mission
Understanding and developing the civic workforce of the 21st century.
Public-service employment is a major part of the national labor economy—and a foundation of democratic governance.
CLEAR studies public-service labor markets and institutions with particular attention to governance capacity, expertise, diversity, technology, politics, and economic change. We produce objective social science that helps explain when civil-service institutions are resilient, when they are vulnerable, and how they can adapt.
Our work spans macro-level labor-market change, organizational and inter-institutional dynamics, and individual experiences inside public and nonprofit workplaces.
How we work
Research, learning, infrastructure, and exchange.
CLEAR is designed to make research cumulative and useful: data become shared assets, projects become student learning opportunities, and findings become conversations with public leaders.
Explain institutions
Use theory and evidence to show how political design, administrative systems, and organizational choices affect capacity.
Develop researchers
Integrate students into substantive research, data engineering, analysis, writing, and practitioner engagement.
Connect knowledge
Convene researchers and institutions through partnerships, communities of practice, public briefings, and BookMarked.
Our path
From founding initiative to a GSU-based platform.
CLEAR was founded as a student-centered research initiative and now continues at Georgia State with a broader portfolio linking workforce analytics, institutional research, civic leadership, and public impact.
2021
CLEAR founded
Established to bridge experiential learning and civic leadership with research on public-sector institutions and labor markets.
2025
New home at Georgia State
CLEAR moved with its director to the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, expanding its connection to Atlanta’s civic ecosystem.
Now
An integrated portfolio
INSIGHT+, AI workforce modeling, ARRC, behavioral research, political economy, student research, and public-facing exchange operate as one platform.
Director
William G. Resh
Professor and Chair, Department of Public Management and Policy · Director, CLEAR Initiative · Co-Chair, Accountability and Reform Research Consortium
William G. Resh is a scholar of executive and bureaucratic politics, public personnel policy, civil-service systems, public management, and the U.S. presidency. His research examines how political institutions and administrative arrangements shape expertise, performance, accountability, and the public workforce.
- Executive politics
- Federal workforce
- Civil-service institutions
- Administrative presidency
- AI and work
Experiential learning
Students do consequential work.
CLEAR is not only a research center; it is a training environment for the next generation of civic leaders and applied researchers.
Students participate in data acquisition and engineering, literature synthesis, research design, computational and statistical analysis, visualization, writing, and engagement with partner institutions. The aim is to make research experience cumulative, technically serious, and connected to public problems.
Learn about student collaboration