Foundation & Positioning

of the European Network for Public Administration

The European Network for Public Administration (ENPA) is Europe’s new premier independent and member-led learned society in the interdisciplinary field of public administration, public management, public policy, and public governance. We are committed to representing and serving our vibrant European scholarly community by promoting academic research, advancing higher education in our fields of inquiry as well as in neighboring disciplines as applied to our fields, encompassing the humanities and social sciences as well as emerging areas such as cognitive and data sciences. In doing so, supporting new and emerging community members during their early career lies at the heart of our mission.

OUR ROOTS

While legally incorporated only in 2025, calling the Swiss city of Lausanne its formal home, ENPA is deeply rooted in long established and tightly connected collegiate networks, institutional collaborations, and academic cooperation throughout Europe and beyond. In fact, the founding members of ENPA share a long experience in organizing research networks, conferences, and knowledge dissemination in European public administration. In 2025, it was their collective decision to put the representation of Europe’s interdisciplinary public administration community on a new footing by offering what the growing, increasingly diverse, and intellectually dynamic community deserves:

INDEPENDENCE & GOVERNANCE

For the first time, our European scholarly community has now the choice to join an academic association that is legally incorporated and stands independent (e. g. from governments, or institutional members) entirely based on its constitution and individual member base, and offering new opportunities to get involved and have a say in its governance.

OUR IDENTITY

Genuinely European in its outlook and identity, ENPA reaches out to learned societies and institutions worldwide and will serve the global public administration community as a hub for intellectual and professional exchange and mutual learning through partnerships and at our research conferences, workshops and other dissemination platforms. Given the range of domestic and geo-political challenges to democratic societies currently, we find comfort in the fact that ENPA positions itself as a beacon of the traditions of humanism, the Enlightenment, rule of law, and democratic principles – principles that we also promote in our own governance.

a self-governed learned society ‘from academics for academics’ that can legitimately bring genuinely European perspectives to the global debate.

In short, the existence of ENPA is the result of a long and steep learning curve. If the European voice in the interdisciplinary study of public administration wants to be heard, it needs to find its own representation – one that is independent and member-based. Finally, European public administration scholarship can find in ENPA the self-governed alternative for community relations and representation. We extend a warm standing invitation to join us as members.