Conference title

"Partnership - Keystone of Governance"

About the Conference

The outsourcing of local based community services to public private partnerships with involvement of civil society organizations is currently taking place in many European countries and policy fields. In particular the policy fields welfare production and culture, education, environment, sports, and recreation are restructured in the course of new governance approaches. Up until now, the topic of civil society organizations involved in public private partnerships has not been well researched. This is particularly the case if we consider theses developments in a European comparative perspective. In other words, research takes by and large a rather static approach on the “welfare mix” of selected policy fields.

The aim of the conference is to analyze the involvement of civil society organizations in public private partnerships from a comparative perspective and to collect and document best practices from various European countries.

The programme of the conference will be as following:

1. New Modes of Governance and Public Private Partnerships
2. What do we know about Civil Society Organizations being part of PPPs: An Overview of the State of the Art
3. Challenges for Civil Society Organizations in Public Private Partnerships: Management, Governance, Stakeholders
4. Examples and Best Practices from various European countries

12 to 15 paper givers are intended. The conference is open for historical and qualitative as well as for theoretical and empirical contributions.

Field trip

Conference participants are welcomed to take part in a field trip to selected examples of Public Private Partnerships in the surroundings of Muenster that will be organized at the last day of the conference.

Documentary

The organizers intend to produce a documentary of the conference, specifically a video or radio feature providing detailed information on the topic of PPP which published on the CINEFOGO Website aims at facilitating the spread of excellence.

Target Group

The conference is open for all members of the CINEFOGO Network as well as for other interested colleagues. Ph.D. students are especially encouraged to apply.

Deadline for Abstracts and Paper Presentations

November 17th, 2006
Please send your abstract to Matthias Freise, Muenster University by e-mail: freisem@uni-muenster.de

 When

The conference is organized within the framework of the CINEFOGO Network of Excellence under Work Package 17 on “Partnership – Keystone of New Governance”. 

The conference is a cooperation project between the Department for Political Science at the University of Muenster (Germany), the Department of Public Affairs at Tillburg University (Netherlands) and the Franz-Hitze-Haus, an independent academy of the roman-catholic diocese of Muenster.

The conference will take place at the Franz-Hitze-Haus that provides conference facilities and accommodation. Please let us know whether you would like us to book a room for you at the Franz-Hitze-Haus. For further information, please visit the website: www.franz-hitze-haus.de (German only).
Muenster is located close to the German-Dutch border and hosts one of the largest German Universities. The city is easily accessible by train or plane. The local airport (Muenster/Osnabrück) offers may connections to European cities.

Costs

The conference will be free for all paper-givers and for members of the CINEFOGO Network of Excellence, while travel costs will be covered by each individual participant.