Events
Bureaucracies & Evidence-Based Policy-Making
Thursday, 20.11.2025 | 11:00 am – Saturday, 22.11.2025 | 4:00 pm (CET)
Bringing evidence to policymaking is a critical challenge for today’s policymakers at all levels of government. On the one hand, demand for supporting policy designs and implementation practices with knowledge, information and research is ever-increasing, putting pressure on programme managers and policymakers at various levels to step up their game and be well-versed in the craft of policy research. At the same time, the social, political and media environment makes the rational use of knowledge and research more difficult – knowledge and information becomes contested, ignored and side-lined in a world shaped by the increasingly powerful role of digital media and social polarization.
Debates about evidence-based policy often focus on two worlds: the world of research and the world of politics. This take underestimates the critical role of the bureaucracy in policy-making as well as its various linkages with external experts and advisors; and reforms to promote evidence-based policy often fail to grasp these realities. That is why the course combines insights from research on the role of evidence with those from the world of politics and bureaucracy.
This seminar is offered as part of the Executive MPA programme and in the open enrolment programme.
On-site event
Managing Non-Profit & Non-Governmental Organisations
Monday, 24.11.2025 | 9:00 am – Tuesday, 25.11.2025 | 6:00 pm (CET)
The increased importance of non-profit organizations -- as service providers, as vehicles of developmental or humanitarian assistance, as policy advocates and social innovators, and as instruments of government reform and privatization -- have moved this set of institutions closer to the centre of policy agendas. Yet there is disagreement as to what management model applies to non-profit organizations: is their management basically a version of business management or public management. Or could it be that a separate approach is needed that takes fuller account of their distinct characteristics as value-based organizations with multiple stakeholders and complex revenue structures?
The course will briefly introduce the conceptual background and examine the various theories that have been proposed, and soon focus on organizational governance, performance, management models, and business plans. The course is a mixture of lectures, discussions, and practical applications.
This seminar is offered as part of the Executive MPA programme and in the open enrolment programme.
On-site event