A Response from Beyond the Public Policy School
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12638 |
| Published date | 01 February 2019 |
| Date | 01 February 2019 |
| Author | Erika J. Techera |
A Response from Beyond the Public Policy
School
Erika J. Techera
UWA Law School and UWA Public Policy Institute,
The University of Western, Australia
Professor Anheier provides an illuminating and timely analy-
sis of the evolution and status of the public policy school.
He makes some powerful observations and five valuable rec-
ommendations for the future. Yet from outside the direct
sphere of such a school it appears that many of the chal-
lenges and solutions are relevant to other social science
schools seeking to remain relevant and be responsive. The
changing student cohort and the need to anticipate
employer needs are not just the concern of public policy
schools. Law schools, for example, have been criticised for
producing too many lawyers who will not, or do not wish
to, practice law. True it is, as Professor Anheier observes,
that law and business schools have powerful professions
behind them, but there is a price to pay for their support;
these stakeholders can ‘shield’schools but they also inhibit
innovation.
1
The focus on growing executive education pro-
grammes is another area common to multiple schools. It is
certainly the case that commentators have argued that pub-
lic policy schools have missed an opportunity in this area,
2
but so too have law and business schools that have lost
ground to the professions and private sector.
3
Perhaps the more pressing issue is whether the ‘school’is
the best vehicle to deliver the recommendations that Pro-
fessor Anheier outlines. Academics are increasingly been
required to produce greater quantities, and high quality
research outputs whilst also increasing fee-paying students
in core disciplines. Schools are constrained by the increasing
prevalence of university executive bodies to set perfor-
mance indicators, in seeking to improve rankings. Simultane-
ously, many universities are trending towards larger faculty
structures that bring together the full range of social
sciences and humanities –including public policy, law and
business schools.
4
This development may provide opportuni-
ties for Professor Anheier’s recommendation that ‘college’
elements be added to undergraduate degrees, but these
structures also limit school-level autonomy.
Of Professor Anheier’sfive recommendations, it is clear
that curriculum design and delivery of formal teaching pro-
grammes should remain the role of a public policy school,
as well as engaging with future graduate employers. Are we
asking too much, though, for the public policy school to
also deliver executive education and establish platforms for
broader engagement with policy issues? There is increasing
competition from independent, policy think tanks–some of
which deliver executive education –established in the last
decade.
5
These external organisations undertake research
and publish scholarly literature, and engage with the public
and in public debate. In many cases they are agile and
responsive in ways that universities have traditionally found
challenging. In seeking to ‘move with the times’university-
based public policy schools can try to compete with these
external actors, and fight for visibility and autonomy in the
increasingly rigid faculty-school structure, or they can try
something different.
Furthermore, engaging with business and civil society
may not be enough in circumstances where many matters
of both public and governmental concern are environmental
and health related. Inertia, division and controversy sur-
round climate change responses and public health funding,
for example, and future issues loom in the areas of geo-
engineering and nanotechnology. This points to the even
greater need for evidence-based policymaking; but this will
require engagement beyond the social sciences, extending
to the natural and health sciences.
One possibility lies in the emergence of ‘virtual institutes’
as vehicles for innovation.
6
These are non-traditional
research and engagement centres that draw membership
from across the university academy without displacing exist-
ing school structures. They are unfettered in ways that
schools and traditional research centres are not and can
cross university siloes and internal-external barriers: mem-
bers teach formal programmes within their core disciplines,
but they also engage in multidisciplinary and multisectoral
research and training. These virtual institutes can deliver
executive education and professional training, as well as
focused and responsive research, as Professor Anheier
A Response to: On the Future
of the Public Policy School’, Helmut K. Anheier*
*Anheier, H. K. (2019), ‘On the Future of the Public Policy School’,
Global Policy, 10 (1), pp. 75-83. First published online: 08 October
2018, https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12599
©2019 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2019) 10:1 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12638
Global Policy Volume 10 . Issue 1 . February 2019
100
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