Building a Strategic Partnership with the Renowned European University Institute (EUI) and School Towards Joint Learning Initiatives for the Direct Benefit of Civil Servants
19 – 22 June 2023, Florence, Italy
ReSPA representatives visited EUI and teamed up with counterparts in Florence. ReSPA Director Maja Handjiska-Trendafilova, Programme Coordinator Gentian Xhaxhiu and Ivana Petričević, Partnership and Knowledge Management Officer exchanged concrete ideas on cooperation and joint activities with the President of the EUI Renaud Dehousse, the Secretary-General Marco Del Panta, and renowned academics Georgios Papakonstantinou, Erik Jones, Jelena Džankić, Fabrizio Tassinari and Elena Asciutti.
ReSPA and EUI have already co-designed the Summer School on EU Integration, which will be delivered in the first week of July in Florence, targeting 25 public officials from the Western Balkans who deal with the EU accession process. Additionally, an executive learning programme will put together senior officials and members of the ReSPA Governing Board to learn and exchange on resiliency and agility of the public sector.
During the study visit, ReSPA Director contributed to the Summer School on Agile Governance held by the School of Transnational Governance by lecturing on perspectives on planning and executing Public Administration Reforms. Alongside European University Institute’s Dean of Executive Education and former Minister of Finance in Greece, George Papacontatinou, Director Maja Handjiska-Trendafilova pointed out “the importance of strong institutions and continuous learning, and ReSPA’s impact on the empowerment of the civil servants in building modern, transparent, resilient and digitized governments”.
ReSPA supported public officials from the Western Balkans in attending the School and getting valuable insights on the concepts and tools of agile governance, strategic foresight in the public sector, emerging approaches to the regulation of Artificial intelligence (AI) and big data, and how an inclusive policy process can strengthen government agility.
Public servants were enriched and capacitated with essential knowledge relevant for:
✔ Strengthening competitiveness, sustainability and resilience through agile management;
✔ More agile policy-making process by horizon scanning and strategic foresight;
✔ Examining opportunities and challenges of AI and big data;
✔ Recognizing how effective public-private partnerships and an inclusive policy process can strengthen institutional agility.
ReSPA team is looking forward to partnering in a new, comprehensive and massive learning initiative to benefit the civil servants in the Western Balkans.
