Comprehensive public administration reform, including a policy-making component, was launched in 2014. The reform of policy planning and coordination conducted so far has created a formal need for new skills and competencies within the public administration which was burdened by a legacy of old bureaucratic culture. This newly created demand goes along with the general need to address effectively a vast spectrum of policy problems in a modern democratic society which are becoming even more complex and require the mobilization of expertise from various disciplines in a methodologically coordinated and comprehensive framework which the policy making as a concept represents.

The higher education in the fields that are the most relevant for professions in public policy, in particular those of policy analysts, is rather fragmented and with a legacy of culture from the less democratic periods in the history of the region reflected in the lack of critical thinking, exchange of ideas, openness to constructive criticism and debate etc., essential for policy making. There are several attempts to include some elements of public management and public administration in the existing offer of the curricula. However, there is no such comprehensive program to encompass all necessary building blocks for education of the policy makers and policy analysts that are needed for a modern society and a modern public administration focused on the citizens and their needs.

Main aims of the project are designing and implementation of a dozen of cross-disciplinary local short cycle programs / modules in public policy at universities in Serbia including curriculum development. To this aim, the project includes capacity-building for universities and other stakeholders in public, think tanks and private sector in order to be able to manage and deliver a contemporary (EU standards level) courses for postgraduate students and practitioners within a Long life learning platform. Training of public administration staff (civil servants) and other participants in policy making is important in order to become agents of change in modernized public service focused on citizens. The aim is to recruit as much as possible interested and talented civil servants and public sector employees among students, working on positions related to policy implementation and policy making.

Main goals of the PPMA project

• To design and implement program for courses in Public Management, Policy Analysis and Policy Making.
• To organize lifelong learning program for current civil servants and other graduates.
• To organize a permanent conference on public management policy analysis and policy making for universities in region and EU and to establish a  community of practice consisting of professionals from the region (community pool).

Activities

Project activities are distributed into in the following work packages:

• WP1 Preparation
• WP2 Development
• WP3 Development
• WP4 Qualty Plan
• WP5 Dissemination & Exploitation
• WP6 Management