Sulev Mäeltsemees

Sulev Mäeltsemees (born 7 August 1947) is an eminent Estonian Public Administration and Local Government scholar and generally held to be the father of Municipal Autonomy in Estonia.

Born in Tallinn, Mäeltsemees received his degrees from the University of Tartu and worked, among other employment, as Director of the Department of Social Infrastructure and Regional Economics of the Estonian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Economics, 1986-1992. He is currently Professor and Chair of Regional Policy at Tallinn University of Technology (where he already worked 1978-1986, where he currently also serves as Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities. In 1992-1993, during the times of "heavy transition", he was Chairman of the Tallinn City Council, and from 1993-1997 the Director of the Estonian Institute of Public Management, the state’s central in-service training agency for civil servants.

Mäeltsemees’ main areas are Municipal Autonomy, Public Management Reform, and the Management of Local Government.