Summer school in Czech Republic

Last 8-10 October Institut Praha organized a kick-off meeting for launching the idea of an Erasmus+ project aimed at developing a summer school for trainers in public administration subjects. ENTO, in the person of its President, was invited to participate. Here after some more details from Eva Ferrarová and Lukáš Jirsa .

The Institute for Public Administration Prague is going to organize the first year of the “Summer School of Training in Public Administration“, which will take place in the Czech Republic on 18^th – 22^nd August 2020.

The Summer School that is intended for representatives of training institutions in public administration will offer a combination of professional training and social programme. It will involve a common forum as well as parallel workshops and our aim is to focus on topics such as Modern trends and training tools in public administration (eLearning, bLearning, mLearning, training applications etc.) and their utilization and suitability; Dislocation of training and tailor-made courses, training of lecturers; Training of officials in the area of work with disadvantaged groups and accessibility of authorities. Moreover, the overarching topic will focus on Social status of officials in participating countries.

The Summer School is free of charge, participants are just asked to ensure and cover their travel arrangements and costs. The accommodation and catering will be provided.

Herewith, the ENTO members are cordially invited to the Summer School and due to the format of this event their spouses and partners are welcome too.

In case of your interest and/or if you have any questions please contact the members of the organization team Ms. Eva Ferrarová (e-mail: e.fer@institutpraha.cz) and Mr. Lukáš Jirsa (e-mail: l.jir@institutpraha.cz) as soon as possible.

Paolo Crugnola December 18th, 2019

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Studylab: meeting with Mr. Margvelashvili, former President of Georgia

Meeting a former Chief of State in a very informal and pleasant talk doesn’t happen every day. But that happened during the StudyLab in Tbilisi. We met Mr. Giorgi Margvelashvili, President of Georgia from 2013 to 2018, in the Georgian Institute of Public Administration (GIPA). The talk offered the chance to discuss about Georgia political and administrative system, about the reforms that are on the line, about the challenges for the future. We also exploited Mr. Margvelashvili personal experience to talk about relations between citizens and politicians, political parties and institutions.

Some unconventional insights came out. As an example: who can benefit from the bad image politicians have in front of the public opinion not only in Georgia? How can any sustainable improvement in the quality of policies and administration come out from such a negative mood against politics? There are so many seminars and trainings on tools and methods for fostering citizens participation but we risk not to notice the biggest threat to active involvement of “people of good will” as politicians.

A good topic for ENTO in 2020.

Paolo Crugnola December 18th, 2019

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StudyLab: an innovative one-stop-shop for citizens in Tbilisi

Driving to Tbilisi city centre from the Airport, it is difficult for a newcomer not to ask to the taxidriver what are the astonishing modern buildings on the way for. They are mostly police stations and ministers headquarters. Most of them are built of glass: it is a clear metaphor of the wave of transparency and anticorruption which accompanied public authorities reforms in the past twenty years.

Among those special buildings, there is one that resemble a mushrooms cluster. It stands close to the river Mtkvari, in the city centre. For those professionally committed to public administration issues, it is definitely worth a visit. Not just for its architectural value (it was designed by the internationally recognized archistar Massimiliano Fuksas), but for what happens inside.

The “mushrooms cluster” is the public services one-stop-shop in Tbilisi. If you are a Georgian Citizen and you need your passport, your ID card, or any other administrative document, you can just step in such amazing building, find very kind stewards and hostesses who guide you to the proper desk and ask what you need.

No queues, a kinder area, a cafeteria are inside. But if you just need to pick-up your document, don’t waste time looking for a parking: you can drive in and get what you need from a drive-in desk on the back of the building.

As a group of experts in public administration, of course we discussed a lot about pros and cons of such an “unconventional” way of delivering public services.

What ever the final opinion is, that is a case study which cannot be missed. At the best of our knowledge, there is nothing similar in any other European country.

Definitely a value-added of ENTO StudyLab.

Paolo Crugnola December 18th, 2019

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StudyLab: the new 112 Centre

The 112 Centre in Tbilisi looks like a spaceship landed on a hill just a few kilometres from the historic city centre. From outside, it has already become one of the most notable architectural landmarks of contemporary Tbilisi. From inside, it provides a practical demonstration of the fast way Georgia has been running across to fulfil European standards and be recognized as a partner in international agreements like Schengen.

As the most modern emergency centres all around the world, the Georgian one is equipped with modern ICT tools. As an example, they are experimenting Artificial Intelligent to improve the work of policemen, firemen, paramedics and other officials. They are in charge of collecting emergency calls and coordinating colleagues on field.

But even such a visit, which could be considered as fully technical, suggested some ideas about the relation between citizens and public authorities. What can be the role of voluntarism in emergency and risk management?

Paolo Crugnola December 18th, 2019

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2019 Annual Management Report

As usual, ENTO Annual Assembly, held during the ENTO StudyLab in Tbilisi (Georgia), offered the chance to discuss what has been done and to settle new goals for the future. Hereafter the Annual Management Report which was read during the Assembly.

Dear Friends,

on behalf of the Bureau I am very pleased to sketch a short overview of main goals achieved in the latest year, not to relax on our achievements, but to fuel with proudness, self-esteem and hope our future steps.

StudyLabs

In my view, the greatest achievement in 2019 is the definitive consolidation of StudyLab as a key output of ENTO network.

This year we had the chance to enjoy two great events: the StudyLab in Strasbourg-Kehl and the one we are experiencing here in Tbilisi. They both showed to be very pleasant occasions to spend some time together. Ancient Romans would have called them otium, a period of time out of everyday commitments that people can use to learn and develop new ideas and projects. A precious condition for effectively seeding future cooperation.

StudyLabs have been offering us the opportunity to get in touch with people and institutions that are normally not easily accessible. They offer the opportunity to discuss in a comparative setting critical issues for our everyday work: cutting-edge topics in local governance and new initiative in the field of training.

A special thank must be addressed to the colleagues who made the two events possible: Benoit Cathala and Gert Fieguth for Strasbourg-Kehl StudyLab and Zhana Antia and Giorgi Meshkidze for Tbilisi one. Thank you and your teams!

Cooperation projects

I am very happy to inform you that within ENTO network some interesting cooperation projects have been born and some of them were successfully completed.

Last year it was reported about the cooperation project within Erasmus+ program proposed jointly by the College of Applied Science of Vukovar and the Georgian Institute of Public Administration (GIPA). That project was successfully carried out during 2019, as you read in ENTO Newsletter.

An application has been submitted for a research project on “Developing and testing a Citizenship self-assessment framework for thriving local democracies”. As partners, GIPA and Civitas Georgica from Georgia, Urban Foundation from Armenia, Open University from UK and Università della Svizzera Italiana from Switzerland are involved. It was a proposal submitted within the call for project research issued by the Swedish International Centre For Local Democracy.

On 8-10 October I will represent ENTO in a meeting organized by the Institute of Public Administration in Prague, which has been member of ENTO for a very long time. Goal of the meeting is to develop a summer school for public officials to be submitted also to Erasmus+ program for funding.

Finally, I would like to recall a cooperation that Benoit Cathala proposed and that I personally retain as very effective. We called it ENTO Open Training. It consists in offering the possibility to trainers and students from ENTO members to attend training programmes for free in one of the other training institutions that are part of the network. Some arrangements still need to be properly defined, but I would strongly recommend you to participate to such an initiative first of all providing information about courses that can be of interest also for people coming from other countries.

ENTO everyday management

As for ENTO everyday management, short information is worth to be given on the following issues:

1. Within the Bureau we have been working on communication tools improvement; specifically, we have been prompting ENTO presence on social media, we adopted a new system for issuing Newsletters, we are going to create a reserved area for members;
2. We also decided not to have a formal auditing from an external auditors anymore. We got to such decision considering that according to French laws associations (as ENTO) are not compulsorily subject to external auditing and the annual expenditure for such an audit represented alone 1/3 of ENTO budget.

New members

Finally, I am very pleased to welcome n in ENTO a new member: The Polish Evaluation Society. It is a pleasure also because it gives us the chance to have back in ENTO an “old” friend, Mirek Warowicki. In the past he was active member in ENTO bureau and it is really a pleasure to welcome him again on board.

As you can see, 2019 can be considered a positive and successful year for ENTO. I want to express all my gratitude to Bureau members, Giorgi, Benoit, Gert, Pierre, Boris and Jean-Paul for the great job we have done together. I would also say “thank you” to all people that even if not in the Bureau have committed themselves in contributing to ENTO activities.

As said, there is no room for relaxing. In February 2019 we devoted our first bureau meeting of the year to start a strategic analysis of ENTO in order to draft a new vision which can lead us into the future. We recognized that, besides many things done some constraints are still there. There is room for a further strengthening of the network. Something new and different still need to be developed and it is up to all of us to discover what it is.

Thank you for your attention.

Paolo Crugnola, ENTO President

Paolo Crugnola December 18th, 2019

Posted In: News

Polish Evaluation Society member of ENTO

2019 ENTO General Assembly, held in Tbilisi on 3-5 October, definitely approved the new membership of the Polish Evaluatione Society.

We are very glad to welcome PES and specifically his president Mr. Jakub Wróblewski and the contact person with ENTO, Mr. Mirek Warowicki. Looking forward to meeting them personally in one of next ENTO events, hereafter some information about the new member.

Name: Polish Evaluation Society
Address: ul. Wóycickiego 1/3, building. 23 room. 313. 01-938 Warsaw, Poland
Website: http://pte.org.pl/

Head of the organization: Jakub Wróblewski, jakub.wroblewski@pte.org.pl
Contact person: Mirek Warowicki, Member of Executive Board

Application for: ordinary membership

Brief description:

The Polish Evaluation Society was founded in 2000 by persons involved and interested in evaluation. We are a non-profit, non-governmental organization. We are staffed by volunteers and currently have no permanent, paid employees. Our mission is:

• to promote the development of a culture and practice of evaluation
• to organize and integrate the evaluation community,
• to propagate knowledge about evaluation to ensure quality evaluation research and activities.

The Society aims to promote the development of evaluation culture and promulgate evaluation as a democratic and participatory process through the following activities:

• organizing studies, courses and workshops,
• performing evaluations,
• exchanging experiences with other associations, institutions and organizations,
• organizing meetings, seminars and conferences,
• publishing,
• consulting and advising

Main areas of activities: training, consulting, conferences and other forms of education are provided throughout the country offering training courses on evaluation step – by– step. It has provided opportunities for gaining general and specialist knowledge on evaluation in regularly
organized “Kuźnia ewaluacji “settings. It has contributed to pursuing interests in dialogue and participation as preconditions in modern evaluation among officials and practitioners.
Currently PES is involved with providing expertise and consultancy for Ministry of investment and Development. PES has its representatives in the Board of Network of European Evaluation Societies (NESE), and in the European Evaluation Society(EES). One of founder of PES and member of PES is ambassador of EPALE for Poland. EPALE is funded by the Erasmus+
programme. It is part of the European Union’s strategy to promote more and better learning opportunities for all adults.
Currently group of PES members as authors are involved in the preparation a few publications with cooperation and support by Foundation for the Development of the Education System. This
publications will contain, description, analyses, practical examples and activities that will help to gain a clear understanding of the research process of evaluation, modern trends in evaluation in relation to education.

Paolo Crugnola December 17th, 2019

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