The European Group for Public Administration (EGPA) Annual Conference 2025 will be held at the Centre for Public Policy at the University of Glasgow from August 26 – 29, 2025. This year, Permanent Study Group XV on Public Administration, Technology, and Innovation (PATI) invites scholars to contribute papers on the theme State Capacities and Capabilities for Multi-dimensional Transformations.
We are witnessing how grand societal challenges, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, increasing inequalities, pandemics, geopolitical tensions, and unprecedented global competition have turned into increasingly pressing cascades of polycrisis. Some authors even argue that the pressure of these crises is breaking the foundations of our current society and we are on the verge of a major collapse. In this situation, governments find themselves at the forefront of transformative actions. The return of the State is evident, as governments are increasingly called upon to play pivotal roles in reshaping societal and economic norms, institutions, and structures. The added complexity stems from the need to simultaneously secure resilience in the face of acute crises (environmental disasters, pandemics, wars), and shape deep transformation in the face of long-term challenges (political and societal polarization, climate change, geopolitical shifts). As a response, recent political and administrative interest has been directed towards aligning the many socio-technical transitions currently underway. This started by combining digitalization and green transitions in a ātwin transitionā, but more recently, fuelled by the recognition of the importance of the social equity dimension, has provoked calls for a ātriple transitionā (for example, in the EU and OECD). We recognize the arbitrary nature of such numerical counting and invite a broad and critical approach to the combination of many major shifts and transitions that we are facing. To effectively confront the plethora of these issues, states are now expected to assume a proactive stance, contributing to the framing and legitimization of new approaches and practices. Paradoxical needs to coordinate between multiple layers and domains, combine different temporalities, choose between stabilization and destabilization and so on create unprecedented challenges for the public administration. Public administrations are tasked with collaborating closely with diverse stakeholders to create new transition pathways, initiating societal and technological experiments, and diffusing innovations for broader societal and economic benefit. This transformative role pressures States to adapt their policymaking and implementation capacities and capabilities. Some of these capacities and capabilities concern internal government processes such as setting up new coordination structures, developing new data capabilities, or rethinking performance measurement practices to enable innovative action. Others may concern the ways governments are engaged with the politics of technology and the future of economic growth (and other measures of societal success) as well as external relationships with citizens and the private sector. We argue that we are at the crucial point in our development where governments need to possess capacities and capabilities for āagile stabilityā, i.e. capacities and capabilities to provide and sustain a long-term and stable vision and direction for socio-economic development while allowing for constant agile search and discovery of ever better ways of doing things and delivering the expected results. We invite scholars, researchers, and practitioners to submit papers that explore the multifaceted dimensions of state capacities and capabilities for societal transformations.Ā
Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
- How should public administrations adjust to meet the Grand Societal Challenges during the time of polycrisis? How do different combinations of transformations shape the requirements for adjustments?
- What are the key public sector capacities and capabilities for societal transformations? For example, for staying within planetary boundaries or ensuring the resilience of socio-technical systems?
- How to build the capacities and capabilities for transformative state action?
- What kind of analytical and reflective capabilities (data collection/analysis, feedback systems, etc) are used to inform and adapt transition strategies and enable strategic leadership?
- What kind of supportive capabilities should governments have and develop to forge and strengthen external collaborative relationships for societal transformations?
- What kind of organizational alignments (innovations) have taken place to sustain the strategic ambitions of transformative State action?
- What lessons can we derive from earlier periods and transformative change events for building more resilient governance and public administration systems?
- How should governments relate to and leverage the key technologies of the future (AI, biotech, āgreen techā etc.) for building new capacities and capabilities?
- How are public administration systems and processes adapting to different socio-technical transitions (e.g., food systems, mobility, energy resilience etc.)?
- How are governments (re-)organizing technology and innovation policy implementation for societal transformations and strategic autonomy?
- What are the public sector capacities and capabilities that are needed to cross-leverage different transformation pathways? For example, how to bring together digital and green transitions as a twin transition?
Papers on other topics in the broad area of public administration, technology and innovation are also welcome.Ā
Co-Chairs:
ā¢ Prof. Dr. Rainer Kattel Institute of Innovation and Public Purpose, University College London, (UK) E-mail: r.kattel@ucl.ac.uk
ā¢ Prof. Dr. Veiko Lember Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia) & Public Governance Institute KU Leuven (Belgium) E-mail: veiko.lember@taltech.eeĀ
ā¢ Peeter Vihma Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance Tallinn University of Technology, (Estonia) E-mail: peeter.vihma@taltech.ee
Important Dates
š Deadline for abstract submissions: March 28, 2025
š Notification of acceptance: April 18, 2025
š Deadline for full paper submission: July 25, 2025
š EGPA PhD Symposium: August 26, 2025
š EGPA Annual Conference: August 27-29, 2025
Conference Website: https://iias-iisa.org/egpa-2025-conference/
EGPA 2025 Conference Management System: https://www.conftool.org/egpa2025conference
For any questions regarding EGPA 2025, please contact: info@egpa2025conference.org
