Public policy has become an established focus of scholarly attention over the last 50 years. Participants have come from a range of disciplines, including economics, political science, public administration, geography, sociology, and law among others and have been involved in a variety of inter and multi-disciplinary areas such as labour studies, women’s studies, environmental studies, governance studies and studies of public management. Some researchers have focused on theories and concepts such as discourse analysis or public choice theory; on frameworks of analysis such as network theory or advocacy coalitions; on the policy process (such as agenda-setting or decision-making); some on the development of professional modes of practice (‘policy analysis’, policy appraisal and evaluation and ‘policy work’), others on specific subject-areas such as health policy, education policy, energy policy, welfare policy; and others on policy dynamics and change (such as punctuated equilibrium theory, path dependency analysis and others).

So there are a number of divergent ongoing conversations among scholars in the field and not many opportunities for them to meet together. Some existing conferences focus on professional practice but many others are subject centered or disciplinarily specific. There is a need for a meeting-space in which the full range of scholars with an interest in public policy can come together and learn from one another.

As the Chairs of policy-relevant IPSA Research Committees we see a need for a global approach to these subjects and are proposing a joint international conference, to be held every two years, in the ‘off-year’ between IPSA Congresses. We see this conference as providing a forum for the increasing international community of researchers who work on public policy to present empirical findings, help develop and refine existing debates and scholarship, and to promote innovation and consistency in research programs, methods and concepts.