Professor Brad Jackson, the former Head of the School of Government at Victoria University of Wellington, is clear on the benefits of bringing an international conference to New Zealand: “It helps our students, both young and old, if you bring the world to them, instead of them having to go to the world.” Along with co-organiser Professor Miriam Lips, who is an IRPSM Board member, Jackson was instrumental in attracting the XXIII Annual Conference of the International Research Society for Public Management (IRSPM) to Wellington in 2019.
The event is expected to welcome 500-plus delegates from across the world to share the best research and practice in public management. “It is costly for students to attend conferences internationally,” Jackson notes. “It’s useful for our PhD researchers to present to, and meet the best researchers in the world here, it helps lift their game. A conference like this is also very helpful in terms of raising the profile of the university. This is an area we excel in. In the last QS World University Rankings, Victoria was 50th in the world for social policy and administration.” Jackson is hopeful the event will not only attract academics working within public management research, but practitioners and those working in public service to discuss new approaches to public management.
“New Zealand has been seen as a leader in public management innovation, so this is also an opportunity to showcase the work being done in our public sector. That not only raises the prestige of the field here, but when these delegates return to their countries it also raises indirectly the profile of public management in New Zealand through the rest of the world.”
He adds: “The ability to attract 500-odd delegates from around the world not only brings the economic benefits from what they spend in hotels and restaurants; but, longer term, these are the kind of people that we want to attract to New Zealand either to work and/or to study. Their positive experience here brings the potential for people to come work with us on research projects and to bring research money into the country. It benefits us on many levels.” Jackson initially made the pitch to host the event to the IRSPM member responsible for planning conferences in a taxicab travelling between the Birmingham hotel and the University of Birmingham campus during the 2015 event. “They said they would be very keen to see a bid from New Zealand.”
A joint effort from the Victoria University of Wellington, Business Events Wellington and Tourism New Zealand, via its Conference Assistance Programme, helped seal the deal and bring the event to New Zealand for the first time. “You’ve got to pass the intellectual test, that it would be a good conference, well-run, but also showcase something distinctive about the place of learning, and the fact that the host city and country is an appealing place to spend time afterwards. That’s where Tourism New Zealand really helped, creating a compelling bid document that not only sold the conference but New Zealand and Wellington,” Jackson says.
“The board was stunned at the quality of the bid document, how well thought-through and visually engaging it was. Feedback in the past showed delegates were not keen on getting in buses and travelling a long way between hotels and venues. So we really pitched Wellington as a walking conference, incorporating a proximity map. Victoria University campus, where a lot of the meetings will be held, is central, close to The Beehive, hotels and the major agencies for specific interests, such as the Ministry of Social Development, or Foreign Affairs. You’d be hard pushed to find that concentration of government anywhere else in the world. Larger plenary sessions will be held at the TSB Bank Arena and Shed 6, which are only a five or six-minute walk away, depending if Wellington’s breeze is behind is you.”
Jackson adds: “New Zealand’s biggest vulnerability was air travel, due to the costs being hard to justify for international academics, as well as environmental and time concerns. We put a strong feature on that within the bid. Information from Air New Zealand showed how central New Zealand is compared to delegates’ imaginations, and how connected. Plus, scheduling the event for Easter 2019 offered delegates the chance to bring their families and experience Wellington and New Zealand. We included a lot of collateral on how they could spend a week or two exploring while they’re here.” The Conference Assistance Programme also helped with key logistics, including funding a PCO to prepare an event budget to go with the proposal, and funding travel to attend the IRSPM event in Hong Kong in April to present the bid. “What really impressed is the level of commitment to the conference. We’re very grateful to Tourism New Zealand.”
Jackson says the organising committee is now looking at using Wellington in a creative way to create the setting for events. A key feature will be a banquet at the parliament buildings involving senior public officials and, hopefully, the Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister. “Colleagues from around the world are always surprised and impressed by the level of engagement the school has with practitioners and government, that access and ability to talk to key decision makers. New Zealand’s egalitarian approach, and the fact everyone knows everyone, is very appealing.”
If you would like to find out more about Tourism New Zealand, please visit www.businessevents.newzealand.com
