Recently, at the invitation of the Department of Administration of the School of Public Policy and Administration, Professor Andrew Podger, Professor John Wanna as well as Doctor Stephen Darlington from the ANU (Australian National University) visited XJTU and held two frontier lectures and two academic seminars on public administration together with teachers and students of the School of Public Policy and Administration, bringing an academic feast for all participants.
Professor Andrew Podger now works as the honorary professor in the field of public policies of ANU, a part-time professor of XJTU as well as a visiting professor of Zhejiang University. Meanwhile, he is also the ASSA member (Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia) and the member of the National Academy of Administrative Sciences, United States. He once served as the chair of the Australian Association of Public Administration, and is the co-founder of the ANZSOG (Australia and New Zealand School of Government). Since 2012, he has been working as the member of Australian Press Council, and was conferred the Order of Australia in 2004. Professor John Wanna is now serving as the ANZSOG president. He has published over 50 monographs and over 100 essays, and served as the editor-in-chief of several academic journals in Australia. As a famous expert on public policy, he is hired as senior consultant by the governments of Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, etc., and often publishes comments on related policies at the invitation of the press.
On the afternoon of May 23, 2018, Professor Andrew Podger delivered a lecture entitled“the Civil Service in Australia: Its Evolution and Future Challenges”in the experiment center of the School of the Public Policy and Administration. In his lecture, professor Podger vividly described the evolution history of civil servants in Australia as well as the possible challenges in the future based on his own experience of civil service and the evolution of the civil servant system in Australia. In the Q&A session, Professor Podger made a comparison between the civil servant system of China and of Australia, and proposed suggestions on the improvement of Chinese civil servant system, which won the consent of our teachers and students.
On the afternoon of May 25, 2018, Professor John Wanna gave a lecture titled as“the Coming Crisis in Western Public Policy: Reasons, Implications and Potential Solutions”. Based on his profound theoretical knowledge as well as enriched practical experience, Professor Wanna made in-depth analysis to a series of crisis on public administration in western countries. His unique and profound viewpoints made a deep impression on the audience. Interaction and discussion with professor Wanna were carried out afterwards, reflecting the flourishing academic atmosphere.
On May 28, 2018, an academic seminar under the theme ofComparative Public Administration under the Reform Era: Performance, Innovation and Policy Implementation,co-launched by the Research Center for Performance Management (RSPM) of XJTU as well as the Chinese Local Government Innovative Research Center(CLGIRC), was held in the experiment center of our School, presided by Professor Meng Fanrong, the executive director of RSPM, as well as Associate Professor Yan Bo, the vice director of CLGIRC. In his keynote speech of“40 Years of Reform: Australia's ‘Opening up’ and Next Challenges”, Professor Andrew Podger reviewed the public administration reform of Australia over the past 40 years. Afterwards, Professor John Wanna made a speech entitled “Public Finance and Budgeting in Australia”,focusing on the analysis of the finance and budgeting management reform in Australia. Professor Feng Tieying of the Department of Social Security, Associate Professor Yanbo, Assistant Professor Lv Shupeng as well as post-doctor Xiao Qunying of the Department of Administration Management also delivered reports on their essays, and gave speeches respectively under the theme of endowment insurance reform, scientific research cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, regional economic development and system support and its legality, as well as the risk analysis in the context of big data. Professor Podger and Professor Wanna held in-depth discussion with all teachers on these topics based on their knowledge and experience. Many resemblances were found between both countries on public administration, which has laid foundation for the possible future cooperation.
Doctoral candidates Shi Jia, Xu Mengmeng, Liu Zhangli, Zhao Zhihua, Master Degree Candidate Li Sihan, undergraduates Yuan Meng, Wang Chengwei and Lu Chenyi of our school also made academic reports based on their own latest research. The topic of their reports focused on environmental governance in China, covering public opinion analysis on mass disturbance, policy evolution, executive approach, policy effects, information disclosure, performance management and so on. Research methods are diversified, including instruments for social network analysis, double and treble difference analysis, mapping knowledge domain and text analysis. Professor Andrew Podger and Professor John Wanna appreciated the outstanding scientific research ability of the students and proposed their own opinions and questions based on their reports.
On May 29, 2018, at the invitation of Professor Gao Jianmin of the Institute of Health Management and Policy Research (IHMPR), Professor Andrew Podger and Professor John Wanna, together with teachers and students of IHMPR, participated in an academic seminar under the theme of public health, with Professor Zhou Zhongliang, the vice dean of our school as the host. Both professors introduced the health management system in western countries and its historical evolution, and made a comparison between the situation in China and in western countries. Some teachers and students interested in this topic also exchanged their ideas with the two professors. On May 30, 2018, the two professors took part in the academic salon for doctoral students held every two weeks, and gave their answer to the questions proposed by the students.
During the one-week academic exchange, leaders of our School also met with Professor Andrew Podger and Professor Wanna, and expressed their gratitude on behalf of the School for their help during the visiting of the XJTU delegation to Australia in the last year. They also expressed the expectation for establishing a long-term exchange between both universities. The serial academic activities held between the School of Public Policy and Administration and ANU have greatly promoted academic exchange and mutual-learning between XJTU and ANU in the field of public administration and policy study, providing opportunities for teachers and students in our School to understand the progress made by western countries in the practice and research of public management, thus deepening the partnership between both universities on academic and scientific research.
