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Discover how we customise learning in public value, systems change, design, digital transformation, creative bureaucracies and new economic thinking with governments and organisations.
Explore: About | How to apply | Previous customised courses | Testimonials | Faculty
About our customised engagements
At IIPP, we believe the best way to accelerate successful theory-building is hand-in-hand with practical, applied learning. With us, technical leaders, policy practitioners and academics work together to build the foundations and practical tools for systems transformation and policy innovation, focused on delivering work which transcends, and works across, not only policy areas but sectors, boundaries and silos.
At the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, we work with a number of organisations to build customised applied learning programmes. Building on our our cutting-edge research and thinking with practitioners across the world, with our six core areas of focus:
- Public value and public purpose
- Grand challenges and systems change
- Transformation by design
- Creative bureaucracies
- Digital transformation in government
- New economic thinking
These core areas of focus reflect the curriculum of our Master of Public Administration (MPA) in Innovation, Public Policy and Public Value, making our customised courses the perfect induction into postgraduate study at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.
Our customised Applied Learning courses are designed through close collaboration between senior academics and practitioners from public sector organisations such as the United Nations, Heads of State and government officials, and world leaders in innovation in government and public value. Through this process of co-creation, our programmes provide a balanced level of academic depth as well as practical insight and relevance.
Get in touch
If you have a question about the Applied Learning programme, please contact Applied Learning Lead Bridget Gildea via email (b.gildea@ucl.ac.uk).
Examples of our applied learning work so far
Government of Barbados
Professor Mariana Mazzucato and staff at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose created the applied learning programme framework with Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley and other government representatives to support a mission-oriented economic growth path for Barbados.
Professor Rainer Kattel delivered part of the Applied Learning programme to the civil servants working for ProInnovate, the National Program for Technological Development and Innovation in Perú to support the prototyping of new instruments and policy tools.
UN FAO
Rwandan technical experts and policymakers from various government departments came together during the Applied Learning programme to support the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources in the transformation of food systems.
National School of Government, Brazil (ENAP)
As part of IIPP’s overarching partnership with ENAP, Professor Mazzucato and the whole faculty crafted an Applied Learning curriculum for senior civil servants throughout Brazil, to help them benefit from IIPP thinking as they work on creating Missions and other instruments to spur sustainable growth.
Bloomberg Philanthropies
A mission map was created during a mission bootcamp for cities and regions to implement mission-oriented approaches to innovation, industrial strategy and investment to achieve successful clean growth strategies.
Testimonials
This partnership for training and development unfolds in the context of people-to-people exchanges with leading institutions in the global South and the global North. The blended virtual programme will advance participants’ understanding of the role of the state in driving inclusive and sustainable growth; critically apprising global models of development and governance and taking pragmatic action to addressing core challenges of governance and government reforms. “Busani Ngcaweni, Principal of the NSG - Executive Education Programme for South Africa's Government Officials
This training should be a compulsory requirement! In the Hub, we do systems work intuitively without having the academic knowledge/background and exposure to some of the debated issues and reflection. I learned a lot from this training, from both the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, and participants—very well selected country colleagues!. I enjoyed the spirit, size, format. Across my work in the Hub I see big need for this training (within but also beyond FAO) and would love to discuss follow-up and next steps, especially as references to UNFSS kept coming up. Thank you so much to ESF for inviting us/me and the collaborative spirit!
FAO Expert, on IIPP’s Systems Innovation programme with the United Nations Food & Agriculture Programme
Faculty and team
- Mariana Mazzucato
- Director and Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value
Mariana Mazzucato (PhD) is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London (UCL), where she is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose (IIPP). Her current roles include being Chair of the World Health Organization's Council on the Economics of Health for All and a member of the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisors.
- Rainer Kattel
- Deputy Director and Professor of Innovation and Public Governance
Rainer Kattel is Deputy Director and Professor of Innovation and Public Governance at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP). Professor Kattel has also served on various public policy commissions, including the Estonian Research Council and European Science Foundation. He has worked as an expert for the OECD, UNDP and the European Commission.
- David Eaves
- Deputy Director for Strategy and Operations and Associate Professor in Digital Governance
Previously a lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School where he teaches and writes on digital era public administration, digital transformation and the governance of digital public infrastructure, David has also co-founded Teaching Public Service in a Digital Age, which has sought to bring together faculty from around the world to co-design and share an open licensed curriculum to teach the minimum needed digital competences for future public leaders.
- Kate Roll
- Associate Professor in Innovation, Development and Purpose and Head of Teaching
Dr Kate Roll is a political scientist interested in vulnerability, with a particular focus on the factors that enable people to gain greater social, political and economic security. Committed to grounded research, she has conducted in-depth field research in Timor-Leste, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Kenya. Dr Roll holds a DPhil in Politics (2015) and an MPhil in International Development Studies (2011; distinction) from the University of Oxford.
View Kate's profile - Bridget Gildea
- Bridget Gildea, Applied Learning Lead
Bridget works at the nexus between innovation, learning and capacity building, and public policy, and is a world leader in innovation in government learning programmes creation. With the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, she works with organisations to craft impactful learning opportunities, including co-creating our unique Theory-into-Practice co-creation methodology for applied learning programmes creation, integrating and embedding both IIPP research and the policy work led by Professor Mariana Mazzucato. She has previously led learning programmes creation for the University of Cambridge and at Harvard Kennedy School of Government.At Harvard Kennedy School, she founded policy executive education programmes, including the world’s first practitioner behavioural science programme and HKS's Digital Transformation in Government programme, together with UCL IIPP Professor David Eaves. She also built programmes with the MacArthur Foundation BI and corruption control in Nigeria; with the Robert Bosch Stiftung in Berlin for a programme at Harvard for Members of the German Bundestag, on Digital Transformation for the InterAmerican Development Bank, and a 5-year partnership with the National School of Government in Brazil. So far, she’s created over 120 applied learning programmes with governments, multilateral organisations and around the world.