Apologies for cross posting - but pass this on to anyone you think might be intersted!!
Dear colleagues,
We have set up a new email list to discuss the possibility of developing something like a UK Academy for Public Policy, Administration and management (APPAM) as an umbrella body. A brief statement of why is attached below.
If you want to join this discussion - which has already attracted nearly 80 list members (which is not bad in August) just go to:
www.jiscmail.ac.uk/uk-appam
and join up.
best wishes
Colin Talbot
Nottingham
Do we need an Academy for Public Policy, Administration and Management (APPAM) in the UK?
At the most inauspicious time of the academic year I set up a new email list (UK-APPAM) to start to explore whether we need an umbrella organisation for public policy, administration and management in the UK. To my amazement we already have nearly 80 members on the list - and it seems to be a wide selection of colleagues from across a diverse community. I have also received a large number of very positive messages - including an offer of support and encouragement from the UK Academy of Social Sciences that has a similar, although much wider, objective.
What we could broadly call the 'public policy community' in the UK is in fact heavily divided into a number of relatively small communities each focussed on a specific area of either the policy process (politics, policy analysis, management and organisation, evaluation, etc) or on policy programmes (education, health, criminal justice, etc). The result is a lot of unnecessary and unhelpful fragmentation in both the study of public policy and in representation of our community within academia (e.g. RAE) and the wider world. Anyone who attends more than one of the many bodies involved also knows there are huge areas of overlap in the sort of papers presented and discussions pursued.
The idea to form some sort of umbrella body (tentatively called the UK Academy for Public Policy, Administration and Management) is simply to address this fragmentation without unpicking the existing institutional arrangements. There are several ways this could be done:
1) A minimalist option is simply that we create a couple of 'spaces' in which this community can meet. One would be the email list that has already been set up. Another might be the co-ordination of annual conferences into a 'APPAM Convention Week' where a number of existing bodies simply held their conferences in the same time and place, with a few joint events - such as keynote speakers - and facilities (such as an joint exhibition hall).
2) A more developed option would be that the various organisations come together to form some sort of federal body that organises everything in (1) but also takes on some wider functions: representation; website; publication(s); membership system (direct and federal); etc.
(On names: I am sure there will be a dozen alternative names from every ten people involved in this: my choice of including 'policy', 'administration' and 'management' was to try to be as inclusive as possible - and to be honest so it's acronym came out as being the same (although different content) as the US APPAM).
My personal view is that we should start with (1) and see what develops. I am pretty confident that once we started to realise how large and vibrant a grouping we are, things would naturally evolve.
Now we have a list - what are your views? What should we be doing? Answers on an email to: [log in to unmask]
Colin Talbot
University of Nottingham
Prof. Colin Talbot
Director
Nottingham Policy Centre
www.nottingham.ac.uk/npc/public-policy
School of Sociology and Social Policy
University of Nottingham
NG7 2RD
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+44 115 84 67439 (University)
+44 7971 674 620 (mobile)
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