Professional Skills for the 21st Century Policy World

Learning Outcomes

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Students will demonstrate the ability to manage relationships in addressing questions and concerns about policy analysis or public management

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• Students will demonstrate awareness of the wide range of skills required in contemporary public management

Subject Specific Practical Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Students will develop the ability to communicate about complex policy ideas orally to multiple and diverse audiences
• Students will develop the ability to communicate complex policy ideas in clear and accessible prose

The course falls into two parts.

Part 1 focuses on training students to become learned consumers of policy research - to understand and assess what kind of method is more/less suitable in addressing what kind of policy question; and to think through challenges beyond methodological deficits such as technical and issue biases, positionality etc.

Part 2 focuses on training students to become competent public managers, centred around ideas of Managing Through (i.e. throughout the entire policy process); Managing Up (speaking truth to power etc.); Managing Down (leadership, features of new workforce etc.); Managing Out (external and other sectoral stakeholders, networks, collaborations etc.)

Indicative reading includes:

(For Part One)

Boswell, J. (2022). Magical Thinking in Public Policy: Why Naïve Ideals about Better Policymaking Persist in Cynical Times. Oxford University Press.

Parkhurst, J. (2017). The politics of evidence: from evidence-based policy to the good governance of evidence. Routledge.

(For Part 2)

Wu, X., Ramesh, M., Howlett, M., & Fritzen, S. A. (2017). The public policy primer: managing the policy process. Routledge.

Van der Wal, Z. (2017). The 21st century public manager. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching activities and learning methods will include a mix of academic and policy-oriented readings, lectures, seminars and interactive exercises.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.