The first purpose of the 2003 Summer School is to provide the students with a solid understanding of the dynamics, processes and principles guiding public policy management from a truly comparative perspective in a European context. The teachers of the Summer School are acclaimed scholars in their respective fields, with extensive research and teaching experience in Public Administration. The selected topics include among others: "European policy management from a comparative perspective”, "Politico-Administrative relations in the policy process”,  "Multi-level governance in the European context” or "Implementation in a comparative perspective”.

The second related objective of the 2003 Summer School is the improvement of pedagogical skills of the participants, particularly learning how to use case studies in teaching and improving lecturing techniques. Lecturing and using case studies are essential elements of any teaching activity at university level, therefore they are very first aspects to take into consideration in the development of teaching skills. The idea will be to invite experts in this field, to develop a larger and more systematic scheme regarding this issue, combining it with students’ own exercises. Special emphasis will be given to the development of personal communication skills, to the effective and creative utilization of different teaching support materials (i.e. overheads or videos), and to the very important question of evaluation and assessment (how to prepare good/relevant exams, and how to evaluate correctly the ability of the students).

The students will participate actively in the Summer School, in the discussions following each lecture, and in the assignments and exercises related to their pedagogical development. All lectures will be in English.