Our Story
In late 1999 and mid 2000 at the initiative in tandem by Professor Giuseppe Farneti and Professor Luca Mazzara, after identified what they believed that should have been the transverse system of the new master in City Management, began to lay the foundations for what would have made the first edition which started in the academic year 2001/2002.
The idea that animated the original proponent group and then became the subject of further development by the prof. Luca Mazzara, was based on the need to form a figure involved in the business of local authorities but that could prove to be competent in terms of knowledge of the dynamics of economic enterprise for the planning, programming, management, reporting and control of local authorities, in terms of analysis of social-economic impact that certain strategic decisions may prove to exercise over a given local territorial context. In this sense, the choice of teachers who were trying to guide the participants in the new way of thinking about management of public administration, was based on those who have been dedicate their research and teaching on topics related primarily the economy of the government although falling in different disciplines (business management, economic, political, legal and statistical).
At the end of the first edition, following an a survey carried out by researchers at Formez, focused on topics of higher education dedicated to the government (central and local), Master of City Management was honored as one of the top 100 formative proposals offered in the Italian market.
Over time, the original plan of the Master has further evolved, thanks to suggestions provided by the participants of the various editions, which have contributed to have an education initiative more and more specialized and closer to the real needs of users.
The courses offered in the Master has been constantly reviewed for improvements, up to the fifth edition in which it was introduced an important educational support through the activation of an e-learning platform able to support the participant in the delicate process learning (including distance learning) of new teaching contents dedicated to the topics of city management.
Each edition of the Master has seen in the classroom as students an average of twenty directors, municipal secretaries, administrators and business consultants, from almost all Italian regions and working in various types of public administration (province, municipality, public service, unions of municipalities, schools, universities), obviously with a strong presence (thanks to geographical proximity) of those who worked in local government of Emilia-Romagna and Marche.
An important indicator of the success of this training offer is represented by the following elements:
- constant number of students at each annual edition of the Master;
- presence of numerous local governments that have interpreted and evaluated the training offer of the Master as a significant “yearly” investment on its employees;
- diffusion in the national context of other similar initiatives, often tend to imitate the structure of the Master;
- during the last two years (academic year 2006/07 and 2007/08) invoiced, a Master in City Management is inserted among the “first-class” proposals offered by the University of Bologna.
