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Jaroslav Dvorak, Klaipeda University, Klaipeda, Lithuania

E-mail: jaroslav.dvorak@ku.lt

Dr. Jaroslav Dvorak is Head of the Department of Public Administration and Social Geography and has longstanding research experience in public service delivery and performance evaluation of public organisations. He has also prepared and published scientific publications on these subjects. Jaroslav Dvorak is the coordinator of the two study programmes: Bachelor in Public Administration and Masters in Regional Governance. He has participated as an expert in the preparation of feasibility studies for Lithuanian public sector organizations. He has also consulted with the Klaipeda city municipality for the preparation of its strategic plan up until 2020. Jaroslav Dvorak contributed to the preparation of the Inventory of the Public Administration profession for the Study Quality Assessment Centre in Lithuania. He is also a member of the European Evaluation Society (Thematic Group Evaluation of Sustainable Development). Jaroslav Dvorak is involved in the editorial board of international scientific journals. He has conducted research in Poland, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Lithuania, Belarus, Portugal, Spain and Australia on different issues relating to evaluation capacity building and evaluation methodology, assessment criteria, and regulatory impact assessment.

Open panel on the Cultural Policy and Management in Central and Eastern Europe starts its work in the frame of public policy, cultural S.W.O.T, cultural planning, driving tool for sustainable development, contract between art, government and society and like to proceed under the umbrella of 26^th NISPAcee conference to take a multi-actor approach to cultural policy analysis and management. More specifically, authors are encouraged to focus (but not limited) on all various area of cultural policy and management issues. The authors are welcomed to present their paper proposals focused on :

-Cultural policy and urban regeneration.

-Local governments approaches for culture-led development and creative cities.

-The impact of cultural festivals (events) on city branding, local politics and identity.

-European Capital of Culture: What work and what are results in the Central and Eastern Europe region.

-Government and citizens coproduction for creativity development

We invite prospective presenters to focus either on the cases studies, comparative research, evaluation of impacts and effects or theoretical discussion of the further perspectives to increase the practical relevance of the open panel and to develop and the common knowledge base.

Involvement of practitioners is highly appreciated. We therefore request presenters to add at least a few paragraphs of their papers that are to focus on the practical relevance of their papers, and invite them to involve practitioners as ‘peer- reviewers’ in this respect. Papers written in cooperation between practitioners and researchers are highly welcomed.