Course summary

Our Masters in Public Administration (MPA) programme will enable public managers, and those involved in public sector policies and services, to acquire a clear foundation of knowledge about the nature, role and development of the public sector and current trends in its evolution. The programme consists of three compulsory modules, three optional modules and a dissertation. The dissertation is on a topic of your choosing, within the overall subject area of Public Administration. There is a one-week field trip at the end of the second term, which aims to study, through a series of meetings with public officials and country experts, the system of public administration in the country visited and the degree to which it meets the strategic challenges faced by that country. The programme will focus on the following themes:

• Current trends in public administration including different approaches to the reform of public institutions, to improving performance and accountability.

• The nature of leadership in a public administrative context, its role in effecting cultural change in public institutions.

• The purposes, methods and outcomes of public administrative reforms, including performance management and fiscal decentralisation, in an international context”

• Principles and techniques of research design and problem analysis in the context of public policy and management in an international context.