PHD course (3 days):
Network and Collaborative Governance:
Theories, Methods and Practices
Tampere (Finland)
Saturday 18 April – Tuesday 21 April 2020
(before IRSPM conference 22-24 April 2020 at Tampere University)
Transformations of state and society over the last 3 decades have increased the importance of various forms of collaborative and network governance in forming and implementing public policy. Collaborative and network forms of governance take place in networks (including collaborative arrangements like partnerships and arrangements to foster coproduced public services), and engage public, private and civil society actors at transnational, national, regional and local scales in shaping the future of our societies.
Research into collaborative and network governance is now firmly established all over the world. It is offering important opportunities for theoretical and methodological development, and for the generation of new knowledge with both academic and policy relevance. National and local differences demonstrate the need for theoretically and methodologically sound comparative research. The course will provide both an overview of the state of the art and a platform for discussing collaborative and network theories and students individual contributions.
This course is offered by the Netherlands School of Government (NIG) in cooperation with the International Research Society of Public Management (IRSPM). Lectures are the former president of IRSPM (Erik Hans Klijn) and the current president of IRSPM (Jenny Lewis). It will bring together PhD students and leading academics from both networks, but also be open for PhD students from other countries. It will create a learning community in which PhD students will:
- Develop their analytical understanding of collaborative and network governance;
- Strengthen their theoretical and methodological knowledge;
- Test their ideas and conclusions through dialogue with leading researchers;
- Contextualize their research in a comparative, multi-national setting;
- Have a chance to present and gain feedback on their research;
- Build an international network of young researchers in the field.
Organizers (NIG, Supported by IRSPM)
Professor Erik Hans Klijn (Erasmus University of Rotterdam, The Netherlands), Professor Jenny Lewis (Melbourne University, Australia), Guest lecturer: To be advised
Aim of the course
Transformations of state and society over the last 3 decades have increased the importance of various forms of collaborative and network governance in forming and implementing public policy. Collaborative and network forms of governance take place in networks (including collaborative arrangements like partnerships and arrangements to foster coproduced public services), and engage public, private and civil society actors at transnational, national, regional and local scales in shaping the future of our societies. These networks or collaborative arrangements however may fail due to many causes. Network and collaborative management is often introduced as a means to mitigate the risk of failure and enable governance networks to achieve desired outcomes in terms of more effective and democratic governance and more innovation policy making.
Research into collaborative and network governance is now firmly established all over the world. It is offering important opportunities for theoretical and methodological development, and for the generation of new knowledge with both academic and policy relevance. National and local differences demonstrate the need for theoretically and methodologically sound comparative research. The course will provide both an overview of the state of the art and a platform for discussing collaborative and network theories and students individual contributions.
This course is offered by the Netherlands School of Government (NIG) in cooperation with the International Research Society of Public Management (IRSPM). Lectures are the former president of IRSPM (Erik Hans Klijn) and the current president of IRSPM (Jenny Lewis). It will bring together PhD students and leading academics from both networks, but also be open for PhD students from other countries. It will create a learning community in which PhD students will:
- Develop their analytical understanding of collaborative and network governance;
- Strengthen their theoretical and methodological knowledge;
- Test their ideas and conclusions through dialogue with leading researchers;
- Contextualize their research in a comparative, multi-national setting;
- Have a chance to present and gain feedback on their research;
- Build an international network of young researchers in the field.
Credits
The course accounts for 4 ECTS, which includes the writing of a paper and preparing the literature. When finished the course students will get an official certificate issues out by The Netherlands Institute of Government (NIG) an official accredited research school.
Contact (the content of the course and the registration)
Seeta Autar, b.autar@utwente.nl
Registration
If you want to participate in the course, please apply by filling in the application form on the NIG website:
Fee: €500,-
PhD students from NIG can participate tuition free.
About NIG
The Netherlands Institute of Government (NIG) is the Dutch Research School for Public Administration and Political Science. NIG is an interuniversity research school in which faculties from nine Dutch universities participate. In 2012 the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) reaccredited the school for a fourth term of six years. NIG coordinates and stimulates research in the area of Public Administration and Political Science and offers a training program for Ph.D. students. For more information on NIG’s activities, see http://www.utwente.nl/nig/
Program
The course runs over 4 days and each day is devoted to discussion of a core theme in the field of collaborative and network governance research.
The first day focuses on the theory and practice of network and collaborative governance. How can we define governance, collaborative governance and governance network? What is the potential role of networks and how do we explain their formation? How is collaborative and network governance practiced in different national contexts and at different levels? What are the main differences between the leading theories? The social network perspective on this topic is also introduced.
The second day explores how we can reconstruct/analyze networks and complex collaborative decision making processes.
The third day we discuss the normative aspects of (network and collaborative) governance: their democratic legitimacy and how we can evaluate (and manage) outcomes. And we elaborate research methods that can be used in research.
On the fourth day we will discuss the future of network governance research. We will conclude the course with a Q&A session to discuss the future of network governance.
The course includes several types of activity, as also indicated in the program below:
- Interactive lectures which present the state of the art of the field (= lectures)
- Discussions between lecturers and PhD-students on core readings which focus on central questions and topics (= discussions)
- Application of theoretical skills in empirical analysis (= exercise)
- Presentations by PhD students of their own work (= PhD presentations)