Areas of Expertise

Public sector innovation
Capacitybuilding and communitybuilding for policy experts and changemakers
Process and service design for multi-stakeholder initiatives
Organizational development and organizational learning
Good governance and transformation in Central and Eastern Europe

Short Bio

Claire Luzia Leifert founded and heads DGAP’s Impact & Innovation Lab, a learning and experimentation space for new approaches to policy advice and public engagement with international politics. In this role, she offers support on process and service design, develops trainings, facilitates strategy workshops, and hosts DGAP’s internal knowledge exchange format “Method Breakfast.” She also heads the Think Tank Lab, a community of practice and training program for think tankers throughout Germany.

Until 2020, Leifert also headed the Goerdeler Kolleg for Good Governance, a professional development program and network for public intrapreneurs from Eastern Europe. Before joining DGAP in 2015, she worked at the Heinrich Böll Foundation as a project manager in the fields of social and health policy and education and science policy. Since 2006, she has been a freelance trainer and facilitator in Germany and abroad, focusing on democracy and active civil society, public sector innovation, and organizational development for NGOs and think tanks.

Leifert studied European studies and international relations in Maastricht, Montreal, Berlin, and Vancouver. During her studies, she co-founded iReflect (now PolisReflects), the first peer-reviewed student journal on international relations in Germany. She also graduated from the HPI School of Design Thinking, is a certified adult education trainer, and completed further trainings in Participatory Leadership (Art of Hosting) and non-profit project management.

Leifert is a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and a senior fellow of Humanity in Action. She does volunteer work for MitOst e.V., where she served as a board member from 2016 to 2018.