Public Administration Education Quality Enhancement Erasmus Project

Project Title

Public Administration Education Quality Enhancement

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Quality Assurance; Research and innovation

Project Summary

PAQUALITY project focused on Public Administration (PA) education and its quality in the New Members States (NMS) of the EU, which have not yet been targeted comprehensively. The present era and challenges of European integration, globalization and extensive requirements on good democratic governance, stimulating inclusive economic growth, social well-being, and crises management, which is crucial, due to the present Covid-19 pandemic, call for a new generation of PA professionals capable of coping with these challenges. This demand requires a high quality of high-level PA programmes.

NISPAcee has therefore created a Strategic Partnership with the European Association for Public Administration Accreditation (EAPAA) and an additional eight partner universities from the New Member States of the EU (3 from Slovakia, and 1 each from Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovenia) with the objective of enhancing the quality of higher education in both PA and related programmes in the NMS of the EU towards the European quality level and their relevance in practice.

The main aim of the PAQUALITY project was to enhance the changes in the area of PA education in conformity with the Bologna objectives, mainly:
By promoting European cooperation in quality assurance/international accreditation with a view to developing comparable criteria and methodologies, and
By promoting the necessary European dimensions in higher education, particularly with regard to curricular development, inter-institutional co-operation, mobility schemes and integrated programmes of study, training and research, which have not yet been fully applied in the area of public administration higher education in the new EU states.

The project consisted of a number of research activities (surveys, interviews, documentary analyses, desk research) and internal and external consultations, which resulted in 8 project Intellectual Outputs. In addition, a comprehensive database of almost 500 PA programmes from 11 MNS was developed in order to communicate with all programmes in the targeted region. The first step was to collect the necessary data for the research, then to raise awareness of programmes on international quality assessment (8 PA programmes outside the partnership undertook an international evaluation of their programmes’ quality, based on the EAPAA criteria within the Intellectual Output 4) and thirdly, for the dissemination of the project outputs so that all programmes could benefit from them. Two 3-day workshops were organized, which enabled project partners to gain a deeper insight and understanding of the major characteristics of PA education systems, their relevance to practice and the standards and practices of quality assurance and accreditation systems at a national and international level in NMS. Multiplier events, organized in all 6 countries covered by the project partnership towards the end of the project, provided an excellent opportunity for the project researchers to obtain feedback on their findings and also served for the promotion and dissemination of the project aims and outputs.
The innovative methodology of the entire project was based on the mutual learning and cooperation of all partners. It allowed all HEIs to be involved in an international external evaluation in the roles of evaluators. This provided them with the knowledge and experience and simultaneously, they became equipped with the necessary tools and experience for self-assessment and the enhancement of their own programmes towards European quality.

The final Intellectual Output 8 represents a comprehensive overview and summary of the findings and knowledge gained and experience resulting from the activities of the PAQUALITY project launched between 2018 – 2021 by NISPAcee, in cooperation with major partners, namely EAPAA, Masaryk University, Corvinus University of Budapest, Ljubljana University, Babes-Bolyai University and other HEIs from the new member states.Based on the experience and findings of the project team, a number of recommendations were concluded in order to improve the accreditation process, both at a national and international level. It also contains comments and recommendations for the achievement of European quality in PA education and opportunities for EAPAA accreditation/certifications. Opportunities for the acceptance of the EAPAA accreditation at national levels have been reviewed, and recommendations towards this end have been developed for selected countries.

An e-publication was published by NISPAcee Press based on the final project output entitled: Public Administration Education Quality Enhancement in the EU’s New Member States, ISBN: 978-80-99939-06-7.
The book will serve both teaching and learning purposes and also a wide dissemination of the project findings and recommendations which can be downloaded from the project website:
https://www.nispa.org/paquality.php?proj_id=16&sid=1903.

Project Website

http://nispa.org/paquality

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 364941,4 Eur

Project Coordinator

ASOCIACIE INSTITUTOV A SKOL VEREJNEJ SPRAVY V STREDNEJ A VYCHODNEJ EUROPE – NISPACEE ZDRUZENIE & Country: SK

Project Partners

• European Association for Public Administration Accreditation
• BUDAPESTI CORVINUS EGYETEM
• EKONOMICKA UNIVERZITA V BRATISLAVE
• UNIVERSITATEA BABES BOLYAI
• Masarykova univerzita
• UNIVERZITA PAVLA JOZEFA SAFARIKA V KOSICIACH
• UNIVERZITA MATEJA BELA V BANSKEJ BYSTRICI