Queen Mary, University of London
School of Business and Management
Master’s degree in Public Administration
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Introducing the MPA
The Queen Mary MPA reflects our understanding of the vital importance of
public sector management and our special expertise in providing management
education for governments and the public services. In recent years, Queen Mary
has made major investments in expanding our academic expertise in public
management and policy. These investments have made the university a major
international centre for public management education and research on public
services and public policy.
The MPA is run by the School of Business and Management and it draws on our experience of management education across all sectors. The School has a distinctive, interdisciplinary approach to the study of management which stresses the need to understand management within the wider social,
economic and political context. Ours is a highly international programme, in our curriculum which emphasises comparisons between countries, in the backgrounds of our academic staff and in the student body. On the Queen Mary MPA, you will work with other students from across the world and whose experience embraces not just public sector organisation but also non-profit sector and private sector service companies and consultancies. But we also make the most of our base in London, which is the seat of UK government.
We have excellent links with many public authorities in the city, which can provide lessons for public management which are of international relevance. Senior UK politicians, public servants and leading figures from organisations delivering public services regularly address seminars at Queen Mary, as do leading figures from governments across the world when they are in London.
The MPA offers more than just excellence in its academic content. We also provide an innovative programme of skills development especially for our MPA students to enhance their careers. This includes group project work to develop innovations in public management practice which students present before a panel of senior public managers, workshops in key managerial skills for working across agencies in the public services, and training in the very distinctive promotion and recruitment processes used by public bodies.
To support this programme, we have made a major investment in creating a new academic staff team within the school dedicated to supporting management learning and leadership for postgraduate students. The Queen Mary MPA offers you an outstanding educational experience and many
opportunities to learn from fellow students, academic experts and leading experts from the UK and other countries. We look forward to welcoming you to our community.
Martin Laffin
Professor of Public Management and Head of the School of Business and Management
What is a Master’s
degree in Public
Administration
(MPA)?
A Master’s degree in Public Management is internationally recognised and sought after by international organisations, by national government departments and agencies, local authorities, regulatory bodies and in
voluntary bodies and firms which provide public services. It is the professional qualification that leaders and ambitious staff often have, who work in making policy and advising policymakers, in running public services and in regulating those organisations which provide those services.
In many countries, it is also a qualification valued by many consulting firms which specialise in advising and working with public authorities.
An MPA is an inter-disciplinary programme combining management, policy sciences, organisation studies and economics (among others) to enable public managers to enrich and deepen their understanding of their work.
Is an MPA the
right postgraduate
degree for me?
An MPA is the right postgraduate qualification for you if
• you work in national or local government, in policing or health care, or international organisations;
• you are ambitious to rise to a position of leadership, responsibility and authority; or
• if you are planning a change of direction in your career in public management. Unlike specialist qualifications in, say, economics or statistics or accounting, an MPA will fit you to advance your career flexibly in many different fields in public authorities or public services.
About the Master’s degree in
Public Administration (MPA)
Our approach is distinctively international. Our teaching draws on examples from across the world and so do we: today more than ninety nationalities are represented among our staff and students.
Our postgraduate programme offers courses to suit ambitious and thoughtful managers and leaders in the commercial, public and voluntary non-profit sectors. We have great strengths in international business, financial management and accounting, the management of diversity and equality, public management.
Our research was ranked in the 2008 national assessment as being in the top third of all business schools – an impressive result for what was then a new school being assessed for the first time. There are now forty doctoral students in the School supported by strong academic expertise.
You can find more information about every aspect of the life of our school at www.busman.qmul. ac.uk. There, you can download other brochures, read about our students’ experiences, find out about our research and about the seminars and other events which we run.
Created in 2004, the School of Business and
Management at Queen Mary, University of London
offers a range of innovative programmes across the
spectrum of management education.
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About the School of
Business and Management
02
Itamaraty Palace (Palácio do Itamaraty). Ministry of External Relations, Brasília.
Why the public services
need managers with MPAs
Queen Mary, University of London
I am a public sector
employer: why
should I encourage
my staff to take the
Queen Mary MPA?
Employers value MPA-qualified staff
• because supporting ambitious staff through an MPA enables employers to retain and develop the careers of their most ambitious staff;
• for their greater skills, understanding and ability to appreciate the context of their work;
• for the leadership abilities which are cultivated during the MPA;
• because MPA-qualified staff come back to their organisation with great commitment to performance and with invaluable ideas for innovation and development; and
• because staff have the time to carry out project and dissertation studies which can inform decision-making in their organisation.
Public sector organisations also benefit from
• the links with the staff in a leading university which are created when staff take an MPA;
• the opportunities created by the networks among MPA students and alumni to make invaluable connections with organisations internationally; and
• from spin-off collaborations which can emerge from MPA project work.
Why should I study
for an MPA at
Queen Mary?
The Queen Mary MPA is very distinctive in style, because
• the course is international in design: we use international examples in every part of the course; we use a comparative approach to looking at
countries; the course examines global and other supra-national tiers of governing;
• we emphasise the political context shaping public management;
• we look both at services and at policy making: the Queen Mary MPA is a fully integrated programme covering public management from street level through a prime minister’s office to the headquarters of an international organisation;
• our programme is practical: you will learn concepts, frameworks and theories but we use these to focus on how public managers solve practical problems and strike trade-offs in difficult dilemmas which they face in running services and supporting policymaking;
• the Queen Mary approach is level-headed, sceptical and concentrates on evidence. We don’t teach you management fads or trendy notions and we don’t make a cult of techniques; you will learn to interrogate the evidence supporting arguments and techniques in public management and to think through the political constraints within which public managers can innovate;
• you will have unrivalled access to leading politicians and public service managers, as a result of our close contacts with national and local government in the UK; as well as being taught by academics, you will hear from practising senior managers in British government and public services who regularly come to Queen Mary and who give guest lectures on many of our MPA modules;
• the programme provides opportunities to network and share ideas with a wide range of fellow managers from the UK and internationally;
• you will enjoy access to the staff and resources of a world-class university and an internationally renowned business school; and because
• you will be have opportunities to use project work throughout the course and especially at the dissertation stage to contribute
to your own organisation. 05
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The MPA course
Studying for the MPA at Queen Mary
What is studying for
the MPA at Queen
Mary like?
For much of the course, you will be studying only with other MPA students, and working in quite small groups. But you will be part of the School of Business and Management, and you will have plenty of opportunities to meet and network with students from all over the world on our many other programmes.
Part time students complete three compulsory modules in the first year’s autumn semester, two elective modules in the first year’s spring semester, the remaining two compulsory modules in the second autumn and the remaining elective module in the second spring, but spend the spring and summer of their second year on their dissertation.
Can I study on
either a full time or
a part time basis?
Yes. The full-time course lasts a full calendar year, because you will complete the dissertation over the summer. Alternatively, you can take our MPA
programme over two years on a part-time basis.
What does the
course consist in?
You will study five modules which are compulsory, and choose three of our other modules, and then you will finish the degree by undertaking a research project from which you will write a dissertation.
The five compulsory modules are taught in the first semester, which lasts for twelve weeks between
mid-September and mid-to-late December
• Public policy and
governance, www.busman. qmul.ac.uk/postgraduate/ pgmodules/88391.html • Economics of the public
sector, www.busman. qmul.ac.uk/postgraduate/ pgmodules/88392.html • Public financial management
and accounting, www.busman. qmul.ac.uk/postgraduate/ pgmodules/88395.html • Organisation behaviour in the
public services www.busman. qmul.ac.uk/postgraduate/ pgmodules/88396.html and
• Policy evaluation and research methods.www.busman. qmul.ac.uk/postgraduate/ pgmodules/88397.html
Then you will choose three of the following five elective modules,
taught in the second semester, which runs from early January to late March:
• Leadership and strategy in the public services, www.busman. qmul.ac.uk/postgraduate/ pgmodules/88398.html • Human resource
management in the public services, www.busman. qmul.ac.uk/postgraduate/ pgmodules/88399.html • Global governance and
international organisations, www.busman.qmul. ac.uk/postgraduate/ pgmodules/84230.html • Economics of development, www.busman.qmul. ac.uk/postgraduate/ pgmodules/88401.html and • Managing diversity. www.busman.qmul. ac.uk/postgraduate/ pgmodules/38670.html
You can find more information about each of these modules by clicking on the links.
There are no examinations for the MPA. Instead, we use assessed coursework assignments, which you will write each semester for each module.
Finally, you will undertake a piece of research, for which you will be supervised by an academic member of staff, and this will form the basis of a 12,500 word dissertation.
Full-time and part-time students study together on each of our modules. This is important to us, because it means that both international and domestically based students work together in small groups and learn from each other.
Teaching is done in the autumn and spring semesters. In the third semester, there are no more taught modules, but you will work on your research project and over the summer you will write your dissertation, individually advised and supervised by an academic member of staff. You will then graduate at the winter ceremony.
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09 08 Professor Gill Kirton Professor Gill Kirton’s research interests are in the field of employment relations. Her work on organisational diversity management is particularly focused on public sector organisations, including the UK judiciary and government departments. Her recent published work also includes studies on the roles and activities of women within trade unions and gender and race equality in employment. Her published books include: The Dynamics of Managing Diversity (2000, 2005; 2010); Women, Employment and Organizations (2006); The Making of Women Trade Unionists (2006); Diversity Management in the UK (2010). She has also published articles in several leading journals including The British Journal of Industrial Relations, The Industrial Relations Journal, Work, Employment and Society and Gender, Work and Organization.
Dr Stella Ladi Stella Ladi is a senior lecturer in public management in the School of Business and Management. Her research focuses on public policy and public administration reforms, Europeanization, global governance and the role of experts in public policy. Lately, she has been working and also talking to the media on the Eurozone crisis and its impact upon the public sector. She has previously worked as a lecturer and as a researcher in Spain and Greece. She has a lot of hands- on experience by working as a public policy expert at the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of the Aegean in Greece. She has offered executive training to public sector employees in Bosnia, Cyprus and Greece. She is a member of the executive committee of the Greek Politics Specialist Group of the Political Studies Association.
Dr. Maria Koumenta Dr Maria Koumenta is a lecturer in Human Resource Management. Her research activities are in the fields of labour economics and labour market policy with a special focus on public sector labour markets and the management of employees in the public services. She has been involved in projects funded by UK Commission for Employment and Skills and has conducted research on the Private Finance Initiative and personnel policy in the Prison Service and UK Health sector.
By whom will
I be taught?
You will be taught by leading experts in each of the field, many of whom are very well known for their research, writing and consultancy work with leading public organisations including national government departments, the European Commission, the OECD and major public policy think tanks.Martin Laffin Martin Laffin is Head of School and Professor of Public Management. He was previously Deputy Dean (Research) and Professor of Public Policy and Management, Durham Business School, Durham University and held various other appointments at UK and Australian universities, and been a visiting fellow at Georgetown University Institute of Public Policy. His research and teaching has been in the fields of central-local relations, devolved public services, politician-bureaucrat relationships, professionalism in the public sector and intergovernmental relations. He is the public management member of the UK Business
and Management Research Excellence Framework 2014 Sub-Panel and previously served on the UK Research Assessment Exercise 2008 Business and Management Studies Sub-Panel. He was, until 2011, Chair of the Joint University Council Public Administration Committee, the learned association for public administration in the UK. In addition he has undertaken consultancy work in public sector organisations in Australia and the UK.
Professor Stephen Fox Stephen Fox is a professor of Organisational Learning and Leadership. He researches what managers, and others, learn and how they learn it in their everyday organizational lives as well as in formal Management Education and Development and Leadership Development programmes and events. His research has been funded over the years by the NHS, ESRC, Training Agency, Commission of the European Communities and the Department of Education and Skills. His work focuses on organizational change, learning and development processes and practices: how they are led,
organised, managed, adopted and/or resisted. Professor Colin Haslam Colin Haslam is Professor in Accounting and Finance at the School of Business and Management. His research has progressively consolidated work on financialization into a unique ‘business model’ conceptual framework. This work exploring how contradictions, embedded in stakeholder networks and interactions, impacts upon economic development. This approach has been set out in a series of articles and reports on the viability of business models in both the private and public sector. His work on business models has been consolidated in a text published by Routledge, entitled ‘Business models redefined: strategies for a financialized world’ (July, 2012). In addition to undertaking commissioned reports (Institute of Chartered Accountants Scotland – ICAS) and delivering special issues for leading journals this research, Colin is also informing the European Finance Research Advisory Group (EFRAG) pro‐active project on reforming corporate financial disclosure.
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What kinds of
careers will the
Queen Mary MPA
help me pursue?
Our programme is designed to enable managers and professionals to advance their careers in a wide variety of management roles in the public and non-profit sectors, in policy development and policy management, in commissioning and procuring services, in programme administration and in service delivery. For example, MPA graduates are found in senior roles in
• international organisations;
• the civil service;
• “arms length” independent public authorities and agencies;
• regulatory bodies;
• regional or provincial governments;
• local government;
• sub-national health, housing, policing, economic development agencies;
• larger companies and not-for-profit or voluntary agencies providing public services under contract to government agencies; and
• specialist consultancy firms which provide advice and support to public agencies.
What other
activities does
the programme
include, which
can help me in
my career?
We run a specific programme of Continuous Professional Development for MPA students, designed to enhance their skills and employability. Some sessions are provided by well-known external contributors and some by our own specialist in-house Management Learning team. For example, we run special workshops for MPA students in negotiating and bargaining skills, and in joint inter-agency working. We also provide specialist careers advice to MPA students, including sessions on sharpening your curriculum vitae (resumé) for public sector employers and on interview skills.
A major highlight of the programme is our “Dragons’ Den”. MPA students work in small teams to develop proposals for innovations in practice in public management which could be used in organisations. Each year, MPA students try to persuade a panel of very senior serving and recently retired public managers whom we invite to Queen Mary, that their proposal for an innovation in public management practice or for a reform is worth trying out. You will also be able to attend Mile End Group meetings of senior British public servants, journalists, business people and academics to hear talks from government ministers, top civil servants and other leaders of British society. More details about the group are available at www.mileendgroup.com. Professor Perri 6 Perri 6 is Professor in Public Management in the School of Business and Management. His current research concerns processes within government by which policy decisions are made, and their unintended consequences. His 2011 book “Explaining political judgement” developed a fresh theory of decision-making in government, illustrated by detailed reanalysis of US, Soviet and Cuban decisions during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. His work on joined-up government has been widely cited internationally, as have his books on
interorganisational networks, policy implementation and his series of studies on privacy and client confidentiality in the public services. His textbook, “Principles of methodology”, jointly authored with Christine Bellamy, has been used across the social sciences.
Dr Almudena Sevilla Almudena Sevilla is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the School of Business and Management. She is an applied micro-economist specialized in the analysis of time use data. Almudena is currently the Principal Investigator in two ESRC grants to study the effect of flexible working on couples’ ability to coordinate their time, and to analyse trends in parental time investments in children as a new tool to measure inequality. Almudena is a member of the Women’s Budget Group, a think tank that advises the government, especially the Treasury, on the gender implications of its economic policies www.wbg.org.uk/. Dr Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay is a lecturer in economics specialising in growth and development, applied econometrics, measurement of inequality and poverty, and political economy. In particular, she focuses on spatial growth and development, and the causes behind unbalanced growth across regions. Some of her work also deals with political economy issues which drive the rich and poor regions apart. She has also worked on conceptual issues dealing with the measurement of inequality and poverty; in particular, where the problems lie with the use of currently popular inequality and poverty measures. She has taught at LSE, Oxford and Birmingham Universities prior to joining SBM.
Careers
Meet the experts
Applying for the Queen Mary MPA
Entry requirements
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What are the entry
requirements?
We are looking for people at any stage in their career who are thoughtful, intellectually curious, hard-working, ambitious and serious about developing their understanding of public management.
You must have a 2-1 or equivalent grade from your first degree, from a recognised university.
If your first language is not English, then we do require that you demonstrate a TOEFL score of 7000 or 7 IELTS.
You will normally have three years’ working experience. Typically, that will be in the public services, or in a private company or voluntary organisation which provides public services or which provides consultancy to public authorities. Commonly, you will be a junior or middle manager, or perhaps you may be a professional who wants to move into managerial work. But we will consider applications from people with experience in commercial or charitable work, who plan to switch their career direction toward public management. In exceptional cases, we can waive the requirement for three years’ working experience.
Must I have a
first degree in a
particular subject?
No. We will consider applicants with first degrees in a very wide variety of subjects. In practice, a majority of MPA students tend to have backgrounds in one of the social sciences or humanities and the frameworks you will learn on the MPA have typically been developed from work done in those disciplines. Nonetheless, there are many MPA students who have first degrees in technological subjects and in the natural sciences too – for example, many public managers who work in regulation or in economic development have a background in technology or industrially connected subjects, in biology, in agronomy while many health managers have first degrees in medicine.
How will my
application be
assessed?
Members of academic staff from the teaching team make the final assessments of applications from people who meet the criteria for entry. In addition to filling out a form showing your qualifications etc, you will write a statement in support of your application. This statement is quite important in helping us to determine whether you seem to be the kind of person who would benefit from and thrive on this course. The application provides you with guidance on what your statement should cover. Typically, we can make a decision on the basis of your written application but we do reserve the right in exceptional cases to ask you to an interview in person or by telephone.
Bundesministerium des Innern (BMI). Federal Ministry of the Interior, Berlin.
Can I visit the
campus?
Queen Mary does not run guided tours of the campus, but you are welcome to come to the Mile End Campus on any weekday between 0800 and 1700 to look around and get a sense of campus life and coffee. You can find a map at www.qmul.ac.uk/ docs/about/26065.pdf
Are there are other
postgraduate
degrees at Queen
Mary that might be
right for me?
The School of Business and Management is also offering the following nine full-time programmes at masters level for the academic year commencing September 2013.
MSc Accounting and
Management, MSc International Business, MSc International Financial Management, MSc International Human Resource Management and Employment Relations, MSc Management, MSc Management and Organisational Innovation, MSc
Marketing, MRes Business and Management, MSc International Business and Politics (offered jointly with the School of Politics and International Relations), MSc Accounting and Finance (offered jointly with the School of Economics and Finance).
www.busman.qmul.ac.uk/ postgraduate/index.html
The School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary also offers an MSc Public Policy. www.politics.qmul.ac.uk/
Where can I find
more information?
For further information about the MPA please see the additional information on our web site at
www.busman.qmul.ac.uk/mpa
There’s more on offer at Queen Mary
Fees, visas and deadlines
What will it cost?
The fees for the MPA are as follows:
• Full time: £15,925; and
• Part time: £7,962.50 each year, for two years
Can I apply for help
with the fees?
Yes. Each year, the School of Business and Management reserves one of its postgraduate studentships (bursaries) for one MPA student’s fees, and this studentship is awarded on the basis a competition.
Many students are sponsored by their employers who pay their fees. Some are sponsored by their national governments or by charitable foundations and grant-making trusts in their home countries.
Information on external Scholarships can be found at
www.qmul.ac.uk/international/ scholarships/index.html, Some international students may also be eligible for fee reductions: www.qmul.ac.uk/ international/feesfinance/index. html#Feereduction.
For additional information, see
www.arcs.qmul.ac.uk/bursaries/ qmbursaries.html
How do I apply?
Full details about how to apply including the application forms can be found at:
For Home/EU applications -
www.qmul.ac.uk/postgraduate/ howtoapply/index.html
For International applications -
www.qmul.ac.uk/international/ howtoapply/index.html
When is the
deadline for
applications?
The MPA programme starts in September. There is no fixed closing date for applications but you should remember that decisions on applications will be made as quickly as possible and popular programmes may become full so we advise applying as soon as possible. If the programme does become full we will update our website accordingly. Applicants seeking financial support from Research Councils or other award giving bodies are advised to apply early. There is no fixed closing date for applications but you should remember that decisions on applications will be made as quickly as possible and popular programmes may become full so we advise applying as soon as possible. If the programme does become full we will update our website accordingly. Applicants seeking financial support from Research Councils or other award giving bodies are advised to apply early.
How do I get a visa
to study in Britain?
You can find information about applying for a student visa to study in the UK at www.ukba. homeoffice.gov.uk/countries
14 Headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service. New Scotland Yard, London. 15
The Union Buildings, Pretoria. Official seat of the South African Government.
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