We call upon the European public administration academic community to support the shaping of a new, independent and member-led European academic network. We do this to deliver effective conferences and other knowledge generation and exchange events, and academic initiatives which reflect ethical governance and provide value for money as well as sustainability, equality, diversity and inclusion. We will organise our first conference in Bucharest from 23-26 April 2026, which will offer a platform for existing Study Groups working in the field, as well as new Research Groups.

As outlined below, this transformation is essential in the face of governance issues affecting the European Group for Public Administration, and in the light of broader pan-European and global developments that require a stronger, unified voice for public administration scholarship on our continent. We have concluded that there is a strong rationale for establishing a new network to promote the study, teaching, critical interpretation and practice of public administration, public management and public policy across Europe: this will be a new and independent learned society for public administration scholarship in Europe.

Specifically, this initiative will respond positively to:

1.     The need for the foundation of an autonomous self-governing entity for public administration academics in Europe

Currently, EGPA lacks organisational and financial autonomy and has no legal personality. Our community is formally part and parcel of the IIAS, itself created almost a century ago when the world was a much different place and primarily governed by institutional members, including national governments. Previous and more recent changes to the regulations governing the relationship with IIAS have made it difficult to be an independent community of scholarship.  We now wish to establish a new independent, self-governed, dynamic, inclusive and legally autonomous European learned society in the fields of public administration, public management, and public policy, founded on academic excellence, interdisciplinary dialogue, intercultural understanding and impactful collaboration, and grounded in the values of academic independence, service to the community, equality, diversity and inclusivity.

2.     The need for investing revenue from events in the scholarly community

A new independent learned society will enable us to reinvest revenues from conferences and events. We wish to set up a transparent financial model which reduces conference fees and that supports young PA scholars/early career researchers and other academics in need of support to attend our annual conference and other events and that can enable their professional development, their socialisation into the European and international scholarly community, and participation in new European research projects.

3.     The need for empowering the scholarly community

The proposed new European learned society, the European Network for Public Administration (ENPA), will provide us with the opportunity to combine the strengths of the current conference format with the opportunity to innovate through genuine dialogue, interactive sessions, and collaborative projects. We invite the European Public Administration community to co-design an innovative future-oriented conference format with us.

In line with the democratic governance models of our sister academic organisations (including NISPACee, IRSPM, ECPR, EPSA, PMRC, EGOS, EURAM and others) we wish to enable our members and study group/research group leaders to have more say in the future organisation, financing, and operation of our community, and we believe it can only do so transparently and in conjunction with that community. We envisage individual membership to be central to fostering ownership by and empowerment of that community. 

4.     The need for an innovative and open European academic network

Considering geopolitical changes and challenges to open democratic societies and academic freedom, we believe it critical for the academic resilience of our community to establish an independent and innovative scholarly community with a genuinely European perspective. The European Network for Public Administration will also provide us with the opportunity to build on current strengths of study groups. At the same time it will allow us to co-create innovative and interactive sessions for collaborative European projects.

While the new learned society will focus on public administration issues in Europe, we wish to collaborate closely with other learned societies in and beyond Europe. We also welcome scholars from non-European countries to engage with us, where they are undertaking comparative research between their own context and the European context.

We therefore invite you to join us and help us to shape this new European learned society. We envisage a number of interesting engagement opportunities in the next few months and years.

If you are interested and willing to support and join, please kindly submit your details to the following form or by sending an email to: info@enpaeurope.com - and we will get in touch with you as soon as we can.

This initiative has been developed by the following colleagues (in alphabetical order):

• Prof. Jean-Michel Eymeri-Douzans, Sciences Po Toulouse, France.

• Dr. Elke Loeffler, University of Birmingham, UK.

• Prof. Muiris MacCarthaigh, Queen’s University Belfast, UK.

• Prof. Francesca Manes Rossi, University of Napoli Federico II, Italy.

• Prof. Mirko Noordegraaf, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.

• Prof. Edoardo Ongaro, The Open University, UK.

• Prof. Martial Pasquier, Université of Lausanne, Switzerland

• Prof. Constantin Marius Profiroiu, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania.

• Prof. Eckhard Schröter, German University of the Police, Münster, Germany.

• Prof. Bram Verschuere, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.

We look forward to working with you on shaping the new European Network for Public Administration.