Recent changes in how public development is managed in France have offered a taste of the challenges that lie ahead as skills and responsibilities are transferred from the State to other kinds of organizations. As regional and inter-municipal governments take on an increasing role in public development, new public management models—and teaching methods to ensure that they are disseminated—will be needed.

 
The mission of the Institute for Public Management is to meet this need by creating and disseminating knowledge in the field of public management. The Institute accomplishes its mission by working with local governments as they implement new management models both within their own organizations and across their districts or regions.

The Institute’s work is built around three main pillars: 
 

• Teaching
• Academic research concerning the different aspects of public management, from economic development to marketing
• Applied research through events, such as the “Territoires & Innovations” conference held in November 2005, and joint research projects such as a comparative analysis of clusters in Grenoble, France and Birmingham, England

The Institute’s academic and applied research activities aim to answer three questions:

• How can business schools contribute to public management?
  • The Institute seeks out ways to leverage and transfer knowledge and practices from the management sciences to local governments by integrating them into the change management process currently at work in many local governments across France.

• What are the issues and practices of public-private partnerships?
  • Here, the Institute’s goal is to develop teaching methods that inculcate in learners a dual “public-private” culture and to examine the different forms public-private partnerships from different viewpoints, such as economic development, local governance, or innovation, for example.

• How can government support technology and innovation?
  • The Institute also looks at public policies that support innovation and technology, such as clusters and other centers for innovation.