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Agenda
15 Aprile 2016

Call for papers for the Annual Conference of the European Group for Public Administration (EGPA)

''Cross-sectoral coordination in health and social policy'' promoted by the Permanent Study Group XX "Welfare State Governance & Professionalism"
15 Aprile 2016

From 24 to 26 August in Utrecht (Netherlands) will host the Annual Conference of the European Group for Public Administration (EGPA). Is now open the Call for Papers "Cross-sectoral coordination in health and social policy" promoted by the Permanent Study Group XX "Welfare State Governance & Professionalism"


Theme
 
Cross-sectorial coordination is an issue of growing importance in welfare state governance. Traditionally, specialization has been considered as an effective mode to manage any kind of state activities. This also true for welfare state governance: social security systems are usually structured along social risks such as unemployment, illness and invalidity, old age, security, etc. Today, however, it is increasingly acknowledged that social problems such as activating the long-term unemployed, reconciling work and family, organising care or avoiding poverty are complex and wicked issues which require the involve-ment of different actors and the close cooperation of different institutions of social policy. As a result, there is a growing awareness of the importance of organising and coordinating welfare state policies and of strengthening inter-professional collaboration. To overcome ‘institutional silos’ and to achieve more coherence between traditionally separated policy areas, European welfare states have begun to improve coordination in their social security systems. Different approaches are used: ‘sectoralised’ policy fields are integrated by merging organisations, creating new agencies which are assigned to coordinate cross-sectoral questions or to encourage collaboration between professionals and different stakeholders as well as at various political levels. The intention is not only to offer citizens seamless instead of fragmented services, but also to cope with tight public budgets and to make better use of scare re-sources.


The study group invites papers with new theoretical or empirical ― especially comparative ― insights on this development. Possible examples for empirical research are the coordination of different areas in the health policy sector, such as stationary care, outpatient care and prevention, but also health and employment policy with regard to a particular problem, such as immigration. Another possible example is the relationship between family policy and other policies, such as gender policy, employment policy, social security or education. Papers can address for instance “top down” policies to facilitate coordina-tion as well evidence for bottom-up coordination “on the ground” or assess the effects of collaborative arrangements. 


Deadline

The deadline for paper proposals is April, 15 2016. Please submit your paper proposal (of max. 400 words) via the EGPA annual conference 2016 website (http://egpa-conference2016.org). The deadline for the selection of the accepted papers by the co-chairs is May 5, 2016. Full papers of the accepted proposals are due by July 31, 2016.


Co-chairs of the PSG XX Welfare state governance and professionalism
Prof Dr Elio Borgonovi
Department of Policy Analysis and Public Ma-nagement
Bocconi University, Milan, Italy
[email protected]

Prof Dr Mirko Noordegraaf
Utrecht School of Governance (USG)
Utrecht University, Netherlands
[email protected]

Prof Dr Tanja Klenk
Department of Social Work and
Social Welfare
Unversity of Kassel, Germany
[email protected]

Prof Dr Karsten Vrangbæk
Department of Public Health
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
[email protected]