Executive Summary
In partnership with some of the world’s leading schools of government, WPP leads the way in advanced education for government leaders and public sector professionals on communications for public policy delivery and behaviour change.
Challenge
In a time of decreasing trust in government, the effective delivery of public policy relies on effective communication and engagement with citizens. Now more than ever, policy and communication are mutually dependent: after all, the way governments communicate policy is often as important as the policy itself.
Yet few schools of advanced public policy offer modules that set out the potential of communication in delivering public policy, particularly when partnered with behavioural science. Our extensive experience of working with governments worldwide has shown that many policymakers and political leaders still struggle to understand the cycle of integrated communication; few can reconcile the creativity and irrationality inherent with human behaviour with the need for accountability and effectiveness in public policy.
Solution
To address this, WPP has developed a range of executive education programmes in partnership with some of the world’s leading schools of public policy. These programmes are centred on the role of behaviour change and communication in delivering public policy.
Each programme is based upon the extensive experience of WPP agencies working on some of the world’s most challenging policy issues, alongside the Government and Public Sector Practice’s own global research into public communication. The programmes marry the case method of teaching with a focus on peer-to-peer discussions, facilitated by expert communication and behaviour change practitioners who specialise in government and the public sector.
The Practice offers three distinct academic interventions:
- Open access programmes delivered in partnership with universities including the National University of Singapore, Carnegie Mellon University, and the British University in Dubai;
- An applied policy module as part of the formal Master of Public Policy (MPP) degree programme at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford;
- Bespoke, closed programmes, tailored to the needs of individual governments and government agencies, and to the cultural and requirements and challenges of the region.
WPP’s approach to teaching is determined by a clear set of pedagogic principles that underpin how our course leaders interact with participants and the social and intellectual environment each course seeks to establish.
