After two years of external evaluation and development work, the degree programs in Public Management started with new curricula in the current academic year in autumn 2021. From now on, students will be prepared for future challenges in public administration in a manner that is as interdisciplinary and holistic as possible. Digitization, sustainability and ethics are now the focus of the education and training.
“We want to completely re-network the cognitive map of our graduates,” says Günter Horniak, Head of Bachelor’s Degree Program Public Management. Together with a team of 40 experts from Austria and abroad, he and Head of Master’s Degree Program, Alfred Hödl, continued to develop the curricula for both degree programs last year. The starting point for this was an international study including a broad survey of representatives from ministries, public administration, science, graduates and interest groups. “We tried to involve as many stakeholders as possible in the development process. There has never been anything comparable when it comes to curriculum development,” says the head of the degree program.
Public administration faces major social and technological challenges. It will have to change significantly in the coming years, in particular due to demographic developments and advancing digitization. “It takes people who understand the logic of administration and the public sector and can translate them into a digital language, a digital understanding,” explains Günter Horniak. “In the future, our graduates will take on this translator role between administration and IT.”
Overall, the new curricula are designed to be more integrative than before. Courses and learning outcomes are interwoven and in addition to digitization, sustainability and ethics, language skills and business skills now receive more focus. In the course of the further development, the profiles of the courses were also sharpened. The bachelor’s degree program is now aimed at experts and executives from smaller units, while the master’s degree program is aimed exclusively at the upper management level.
