ResearchErkki Karo, 21.04.2010 07:02, E-mail to author, Print

DPA's present research and also teaching can be characterized by the following values:

Scientific method

The R&D and study processes in DPA are based on scientific methods, from structuring the study courses to the requirements set for the graduation theses. Teaching is based on the high level of research of the professors and the rest of the staff. DPA has one of the highest annual averages of international peer-reviewed publications at TUT. With new senior and junior faculty having joined DPA in 2006-2008, DPA is bound to become one of the best performers by scholarly output in Estonia; in the field of Public Administration, it already is.

Internationalization

Strong international orientation and networking of DPA's academic staff is one of the key elements of the Department, which involves multifarious types of cooperation with the leading foreign universities in the field and constant benchmarking of the program's structure, orientation and performance with comparable programs in the 'West'. As has already been indicated, international faculty members currently make up 20% of DPA's faculty (senior faculty members - 45%), and DPA is committed to continue recruiting international faculty so that the respective figure will keep increasing. Our faculty members have been visiting professors at several top foreign universities including Leuven, Lund, Vienna, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico, Nice, Cambridge, Sussex, Nottingham, Paris, Valencia etc. In 2008, Tallinn University of Technology acknowledged the recent internationalization developments of DPA by conveying upon Professor Geert Bouckaert from the Catholic University of Leuven an honorary Doctoral degree.

Practice orientation

Almost all DPA staff has practical working experience in civil service or international organizations, and they have been active in international as well as local consultancy projects for the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Commission, OECD, the Lisbon Agenda Group and almost all Baltic Sea metropolises, Estonian ministries and municipalities etc. DPA purposely employs Estonia's top senior civil servants, who often are DPA alumni, in its study process as adjunct faculty members and guest lecturers to provide the students with the knowledge and experience of the current situation in civil service.

Diversity of students

DPA aims at creating a multicultural learning environment by offering courses in Estonian as well as English and is therefore open for students coming from abroad. DPA has had full-time students from Brazil, China, Greece, India, the Philippines, Russia, Turkey and the EU countries. At the same time, DPA has special curricula and arrangements for working students and students with or without previous knowledge of public administration, so that opportunities are created for students of all ages and different experiences. Starting in the academic year 2000-2001, the Public Administration BA and MA curricula have also offered students the possibility to study in distant-learning programs.

Interdisciplinarity

DPA is home to five chairs (Governance; Public Management and Policy; Regional Development; Innovation Policy and Technology Governance; Philosophy) which ensure that DPA studies and research are interdisciplinary. Faculty members come from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds including Public Administration, Political Science, Sociology, European Studies, Economics, Law, Philosophy, History, Classical Philology, Geography and Social Work. In particular on the BA level, cooperation is also strong with other departments of TUT as the BA curriculum integrates subjects from a wide range of different fields: economics, law, informatics, foreign languages, etc. The MA program in Technology Governance is one of the rare programs launched and taught in English at TUT, and it is the only one that can be considered genuinely interdisciplinary, covering the fields of public policies, economics and technology in an interconnected approach. DPA is committed to further facilitating interdisciplinary connections between the fields of Public Administration and technical, natural, engineering, legal and economic disciplines.

Interactivity

DPA emphasizes an individual, student-focused approach in the teaching process, which, among other things, means having comparatively small study groups and strong links between teaching and the specific academic and R&D projects and programs of the Department.