Programme Overview

Up until 2014, the Programme was offered by the Faculty of Public Administration.  To manage degree programmes more efficiently, HSE launched structural reforms in spring 2014, in which faculties were merged into “big” faculties (“megafaculties”). These are the equivalents of the institutes (schools) that serve as building blocks of many universities around the world today. In recent years, Russian universities have begun to adopt this model, too. Consisting of departments and schools, megafaculties manage degree programmes.

The School of Public Administration is a part of the Faculty of Social Sciences. It prepares students for jobs in public administration, including central and local government, central and local institutions, enterprises wholly or partially owned by the state, non-profit organizations, and others (with a focus on “Governance”, “Public management’, “Public Policy” or “Public Administration”). The School of Public Administration is the successor to the Faculty of Public Administration that was founded in 2002 and that existed as an independent unit until 2014. The School offers a bachelor’s programme in Public Administration as well as five master’s programmes in the field: “Public Administration”, “Population and Development”, “Evidence-Based Educational Policy”, “Health Care Administration and Economics”, “Personnel Management in Public Organizations”. The School of Public Administration also participates in the work of post-graduate schools. 

The School’s faculty members include professors, doctors and candidates of science, and PhD degree holders. They assure the high quality of education and the compliance of courses with international standards.

Mission Statement

The Programme’s mission is to train generalists in the field of public administration that are familiar with public administration theories and possess the necessary skills for solving administrative problems in the public sector.

The educational philosophy of the programme can be described as sequence: Theory-Tool-Context-Implementation. Undergraduate studies in public administration should equip students with a working understanding of key theories of public management, and introduce them to a broad range of tools of governance. Students will be able to develop the ability to select the right tools in each appropriate context, anticipate and assess impact of decisions made. Such set of competencies is best acquired through multiple active engagements where theory, knowledge of tools and understanding of context interact and reinforce each other. We believe in seamless transitions from traditional lectures and seminars to master-classes with working professionals, to context-rich simulation games, and finally, to meaningful field experiences.

The Programme’s main goal is to prepare bachelor’s graduates with up-to-date theoretical and practical knowledge and a familiarity with national and international standards as well as an optimal set of competencies for practical work in the domain of public and municipal administration or for pursuing further academic careers.

The Public Administration programme aims to prepare professionals for civil service at all levels and public enterprises as well as for socially oriented non-commercial organizations. Programme graduates are familiar with the theory of administration and with methods of taking managerial decisions during the stable development of the state and in times of crisis.

The Programme offers several professional tracks that relate to the specializations of the departments of the School of Public Administration. A programme graduate should be able to perform the following tasks:

As a federal civil servant, he should effectively

• Draft administrative regulations, performance indicators of government ministries and departments, and labour productivity indicators of employees;
• Support the work of coordinating, deliberative and advisory bodies to the President, Legislature and Government of the Russian Federation and federal executive bodies;
•  Draft official reports, evaluations and financial and economic feasibility studies (with the necessary figures) for legislative bills, normative legal acts and orders of authorized bodies and officials and make anticorruption assessments;
• Assess the regulatory impact of public services and monitor and evaluate their quality;
• Optimize procurement activities, make procurements for state and municipal needs, including procurement planning, implementing competitive procedures, signing and managing contracts, and monitoring and controlling procurement activities.

As a regional and municipal civil servant, he should be able to

• Support the activities of high-level regional legislative and executive bodies and local government bodies as well as coordinating, deliberative and advisory bodies;
• Make feasibility studies and participate in monitoring the execution of projects and programmes, different areas of urban and municipal development, the management of the spatial development of agglomerations, and the elaboration and assessment of documents relating to territorial planning and urban zoning as well as projects of territorial planning and demarcation;
• Assess and monitor social self-organization practices, manifestations of social solidarity and social tension in local communities, and measures taken to prevent or overcome the latter.

As a specialist in the nonprofit sector, the programme graduate knows

• The specifics of civil society, the work of non-commercial organizations in Russia and abroad, the functioning of international organizations, and the forms and types of national and intergovernmental organizations;
• The methods of external interaction between local government bodies, international organizations and non-commercial organizations;
• Innovative methods in the public domain;
• How to involve NCOs in solving current social problems and support them in these activities using the best national and international practices.

As a financial manager for public organizations, the graduate knows how to

• Participate in managing concrete finances and taxes, making financial statements and performing other types of accounting using international financial accounting standards, among others;
• Make a financial analysis of projects;
• Manage the process of redistributing financial resources between different participants of the financial system (and within each of them) and attract and effectively use financial resources;
• Conduct financial audits;
• Use information technologies and financial management systems;
• Organize procurements.