About IFR

This long-term research project offers an innovative perspective on the interaction between street-level public service providers and clients. It focuses on informal personal resources (IFRs): emotional, instrumental, and material support that frontline workers provide beyond their formal duties, drawing on their own time, energy, and finances. In its initial stage, the project revealed the widespread and routine nature of these hidden practices across welfare, education, and health services.

 

Building on these findings, the project received funding from the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) and expanded between 2022 and 2026 to examine additional professional settings, the gendered dynamics of informal service provision, and the implications for inequality, both among frontline workers and between citizens.

 

As the project continues to evolve, it yields profound insights into discretion and accountability in contemporary public service, and how these are interwoven with macro-level social policy and welfare regimes.