His habilitation thesis „Collaboration among political actors, institutions, and outputs“ is composed of five papers and analyses which factors influence collaboration among different types of political actors in different contexts, how institutions such as policy forums can foster collaboration and the production of outputs, and how coalition structures among actors influence outputs. Manuel’s oral presentation dealt with the issue of “(Mis)perceptions of political actors“. It suggested that actors’ different perceptions of reality are not just noise in the data, but a substantively important issue to understand. Based on socio-psychological theories, different factors influence how actors (mis)perceive a policy process or their opponents.

At Eawag, Manuel leads the group PEGO (Policy Analysis and Environmental Governance) within the Environmental Social Sciences Department as tenure track researcher. His research focuses on analysing governance arrangements, decision-making processes and political networks, with a focus on water and environmental issues.