The 24th NISPAcee Annual Conference, organised in co-operation with the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, was attended by almost 250 participants from 36 countries worldwide. This included 20 CEE countries covered by NISPAcee institutional membership.

NISPAcee would like to thank the local organisers, the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, mainly to Ivan Kopric, the Chair of the Conference Organizing and International Programme Committees, and the whole Croatian team for the excellent organisation of the conference, financial support and preparation of the social events, which created a special, friendly and pleasant atmosphere for conference participants.

NISPAcee would also like to thank the members of the International Program Committee, including the coordinators of all research working groups and in addition to all chairs of sessions and panels for their contributions to the high scientific and academic value of the entire event.

PRE-CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
PhD Pre-conference Seminar 
Chairs: Michiel de Vries, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands and Iwona Sobis, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
The seminar enabled PhD students to present a paper and have these papers and presentations discussed in more detail concerning structure and content than sessions in the conference themselves allow and to improve upon them.

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

Opening Plenary Sessions
The conference was opened by the welcoming and opening speeches given by representatives of NISPAcee, the University of Zagreb, Croatian governmental representatives, and the UN and by the key-note speech on The Future of Public Law in Europe - Integrated Administrations and the Consequences presented by Herwig Hofmann from the University of Luxembourg.

The speeches were followed by the awards ceremony.  The new winner of the Alena Brunovska Award is Ivan Kopric from the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb.

Riin Savi from Tallinn University of Technology was awarded with the Mzia Mikeladze PhD Thesis Award.
The opening session continued with the EAPAA Plenary Session on Trends in Public Administration Education, chaired by Taco Brandsen from Radboud University Nijmegen. 

The conference programme continued with sessions on the main theme, general session and working research groups and panels which enriched the programme of the conference with new information:

I. Working Group on Local Government 

ReSPA Panel (Regional School of Public Administration)

 

As usual, the Friday afternoon was devoted to the Business Meeting chaired by Marius Profiroiu, NISPAcee President and Ludmila Gajdosova, NISPAcee Executive Director, who presented reports on activities implemented in 2015, future plans for 2016, financial report and membership opportunities.
 
The present principal representatives of the NISPAcee member institutions elected the new members of the NISPAcee Steering Committee:

Jadranka Djurkovic, Montenegro was elected for her second 3 years term, and Juraj Nemec, Slovakia, Polona Kovac, Slovenia and Sarapuu Kulli, Estonia were elected for their first term in the Steering Committee.

The new NISPAcee Steering Committee met on Saturday morning and Juraj Nemec was elected as a new NISPAcee President.

The NISPAcee conference was closed by the Closing Round Table on Harmonisation with European Administrative Principles and Standards in South-Eastern Europe chaired by Jadranka Djurkovic, NISPAcee Steering Committee Member / HRMA, Podgorica and Anamarija Musa, Information Commissioner / Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb.
The Closing Round Table was followed by the Awards ceremony.

 

Urša Jeretina, Faculty of Administration, University of Ljubljana was awarded the Award for the Best Graduate Student Paper.

Ringa Raudla, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia and James W. Douglas, University of North Carolina in Charlotte, USA/Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia and Tiina Randma-Liiv, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia and Riin Savi, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia were awarded the Award for the Best Comparative Paper.

 

Tony Verheijen, The World Bank, Belgrade, Serbia was awarded the Merit Award.

The final, but very important moment, was devoted to the invitation to conference participants to the 25th NISPAcee Annual conference. This will be held on May 18 - 20, 2017 in Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. Liliya Nurgatina, representative of the local conference organising institution, the Kazan Federal University, presented her university as the best and most appropriate conference venue.

SOCIAL PROGRAMME
The local conference organisers prepared very pleasant social events for participants. During the Welcome evening, participants visited the historical "Dverce Palace” in the old upper city.
The second evening, with its special Art Deco Retro party, was an opportunity for everyone to use their imaginations and to come dressed in art deco retro style. A special award was presented to the most creative dressed lady and gentleman - Reka Zsuzsanna Mathe from Hungary and Pawel Swianiewicz from Poland.
Thanks to the Croatian organiser the conference participants also visited the small city of Samobor, where a sightseeing trip was organised together with tasting the typical and famous Samobor custard slice "kremsnita".

Conference web-page: www.nispa.org/conference2016