Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy



Calls for papers for themes

Call for papers

The internationalization and privatization of higher education

The themed issue will be edited by Professors Jane Broadbent and Robin Middlehurst

Public Money & Management (PMM) wishes to stimulate debate about two quite distinct and rather new challenges that we have recognized in the context of what is already a turbulent time for higher education (HE) in many countries. The two challenges create significant opportunities for those willing to address them. They are the internationalization of HE teaching and research, and the privatization of the HE market. These challenges make significant demands on managers and management of colleges and universities, as well as on policy-makers in the sector.

PMM will be publishing a themed issue on ‘the internationalization and privatization of higher education’ in January 2013 (Vol. 33, No. 1) to promote understanding of the opportunities that are developing to address the costs of providing HE to a larger and more diverse population who will need to engage and re-engage with HE throughout their lives.

We invite contributions that consider the implications of these changes and the opportunities they provide. Internationalization articles on teaching could include recruiting international students, validation and franchising, overseas centres and campuses, consortia of universities, and the growth of ‘regional hubs’. In terms of the research agenda, PMM is interested in international collaboration and sources of funding. Contributions on privatization could look at public-private partnerships, privatization of non-core (and some core) functions, outsourcing, use of private finance, and the emergence of private providers.

PMM publishes main articles, new developments and contributions to debate. Main articles (up to 5250 words) must meet high standards of intellectual argument, evidence and understanding of practice in public management. They are double-blind refereed by both an academic and a practitioner. New developments (2750 words) focus on the evolution of contemporary public service policy, management or practice and convey the potential or actual impact of change in a detached, informed and authoritative way. These articles are not normally refereed, but are subject to editorial scrutiny. Debate articles (1000 words) are personal statements about topical issues, expressing an argument, supported by examples or evidence. They, too, are subject to editorial scrutiny. See http://www.cipfa.org.uk/pt/pmm/ for information about PMM.

Submissions are required to the managing editor (michaela.lavender@cipfa.org.uk) by 31 March 2012.

Using information in local governance: learning from the past, facing up to current challenges and shaping future opportunities

Guest editors: Rob Wilson (Newcastle University), Susan Baines (Manchester Metropolitan University), Irene Hardill (Northumbria University) and Martin Ferguson (Socitm: the Society of Information Technology Management)

This themed issue of Public Money & Management will explore the key challenges posed by the uses of information in policy-making and delivering public services. Public services are being affected worldwide by two new challenges: austerity measures and information overload. There is a need to critically examine how these changes effect individuals, families, communities and organizations, and the relationships between them.

Once, achieving the vision of responsive and agile local services was hampered by a shortage of information. Today, the problem is the opposite-information overload (see Wilson et al., 2011, Information for localism? Policy sensemaking for local governance. Public Money & Management, 31, 4, pp. 295-300). Traditionally, information systems have been largely in the hands of the state. Typically, these systems have been shaped through a range of responses to legislative programmes and approaches to performance management and delivered using long established institutional systems supplied by major IT providers-or, in some contexts, dominant niche suppliers. We are now seeing the growing phenomenon of open data and an emergent activist community using a variety of social networking tools. Such activity is raising the ‘governance stakes’, with new approaches and experiments being conducted in a variety of domains across the globe. The scale and scope of data and information potentially available for local service governance is likely to begin to shape an ‘information economy’ of personal information; performance information; service management/commissioning information; transaction data; and other sources of organizational and community-generated data. Some of the challenges include tensions between individual privacy and community safety; activity around environmental sustainability and financial economy; balancing the state and individual contributions to health and social care; and approaches to accounting for the governance of services and of information, not to mention the mechanisms by and values on which decisions were taken.

We invite contributions from any disciplinary perspective that will advance understanding of these challenges for researchers, policy makers, citizens, philanthropists and public institutions in the 21st century. Themes that articles could address include (but are not limited to):

Final articles must be no more than 5250 words. Full articles will be double-blind refereed by an academic and a practitioner reviewer. Given the emergent nature of these debates, we particularly welcome ‘new development’ articles (up to 2750 words) that focus on the potential or impact of change; and debate articles (about 1000 words) expressing personal viewpoints supported by evidence. These are not blind reviewed but subject to editorial scrutiny by the guest editorial team. See http://www.cipfa.org.uk/pt/pmm/submissions.cfm for PMM’s requirements.

Initial ideas for articles, new developments or debate pieces should be sent as long abstracts (between 500 and 1500 words) to Rob.Wilson@ncl.ac.uk by 31 January 2012 for consideration by the editorial team. Invitations to submit full versions of articles will issued by the end of February 2012, with final versions anticipated by the end of August 2012 for review with publication timetabled for 2013.