UKAPA Hosts International Conference at Ulster University

The second international annual conference of the United Kingdom Association for Public Administration (UKAPA) has just concluded at our Belfast campus. Formed in 2024, as the successor body to the Public Administration Committee of the Joint University Council of the UK, UKAPA is the leading learned society for the study of public administration.

The conference was organised by Professors Paul Carmichael and Karl O’Connor of the Centre for Public Administration, which is housed within the School of Applied Social and Policy Sciences. Building on last year’s inaugural conference in Birmingham, this year’s theme - ‘The Future of Public Administration’  was timely - with governments around the world wrestling with stagnant economic growth and rising public expectations, while approaching the limits of public toleration for higher taxation, the resulting fiscal stress poses serious challenges over the size, scope and funding of the state, and of publicly provided goods, services and welfare. Environmental pressures, sustainability concerns, demographic change and rapidly evolving technological capabilities, combine to exacerbate these intense pressures on politicians, policy makers and public administrators. Therefore, those actors are charged with developing innovative ways of providing public services within ever tighter public budgets. Like in Northern Ireland, public provision in many states is at a crossroads, with previous longstanding commitments to universalism susceptible to calls for ‘more affordable’ but selective governmental interventions.

The changing global landscape demands a renewed conversation between academics, policy makers and practitioners to examine how best to meet the challenges of our age. Governments everywhere are obliged to examine the breadth of their operations, considering radical measures in terms of the form, function, finance and staffing of the public sector, if the most vulnerable in society are to be protected, in ways that do not undermine incentives and economic vitality, nor alienate public sector workforces. These pressures afflict not only the advanced and most affluent of economies but span the globe. For industrialising states and those at dissimilar stages of economic development, particularly those experiencing conflict or post-conflict, while particular local pressures differ, there is a shared if not greater need to address global challenges relating to the environment, resources, demography, and technology. In all instances, how do public sectors innovate and adapt to their circumstances, both those specific to them and more global in nature, working more effectively with stake holders to harness and deploy optimally available resources?

All these and other weighty questions were the subject of spirited debate and discussion by some 120 academics, researchers, doctoral students and practitioners, including former MPA students, who were registered for the two-day gathering. As well as coming from the across UK and Ireland, our participants hailed from around the world including Brazil, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, The Netherlands, Nigeria, Slovenia, South Africa, Ukraine, and the USA.

In addition, and closer to home, the ongoing retrenchment with job cuts and course consolidation in the UK higher education sector may well pose questions over ‘The Future of Public Administration’ in universities, not to mention the effect of artificial intelligence on research, teaching, learning and assessment. A frank dialogue was held in relation to the impact of these developments and the challenges they pose.

The multi-disciplinary nature of the event provides opportunities for colleagues from the various dimensions of public administration (and allied subjects) to connect and engage in open dialogue and vigorous debate. The importance of relationships with other cognate learned societies and other public sector bodies and research organisations was reflected in our Roundtables, with speakers from the civil service, local government, and voluntary & charitable organisations.

For further information, please contact

Professor Paul Carmichael or Professor Karl O’Connor, UKAPA Conference Convenors, 2025.