With the participation of Renaud Epstein from the University of Nantes
The Service du Pilotage et de l’Evolution des Services (Service for Steering and Development) of the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development, and Energy asked LATTS to organize a seminar to inform senior executives at the ministry about research on topics that directly concern them. For several years, this ministry has been engaged in a series of cultural reforms (merger of ecology, infrastructure, and industry in the late 2000s, elimination of competitive public engineering) and organizational reforms (RéATE) and a continuous evolution of missions and resources. These changes are set to continue with the upcoming territorial reform, which may lead to organizational changes for the ministry's departments.
The seminar was aimed at an audience of directors and deputy directors of decentralized services as well as administrative managers, and brought together around 30 people for each of the four days. The presentations by researchers were followed by responses from civil servants from this ministry or other relevant public organizations.
The first session, on July 10, 2015, focused on the issue of agencies and decentralized services. It provided an opportunity to discuss the contrast between the considerable autonomy granted to agencies in recent years and the control and limited resources allocated to decentralized services. Researchers presenting: Renaud Epstein, University of Nantes; François Mathieu Poupeau, LATTS.
The second session, on November 20, 2015, presented the ongoing debates on the new geography of public intervention, focusing on three contrasting contexts: metropolitan areas, peri-urban areas, and declining cities. This session highlighted that the state can still intervene effectively in these different types of territories, but under very different conditions. Participating researchers: Daniel Behar (Paris Institute of Urban Planning), Anne Lambert (INED), Yoan Miot (LATTS), Daniel Florentin (LATTS).
The third session, on February 5, 2016, addressed the evolution of public management through two quantitative surveys on the use of management tools in French administrations and on the perceptions of reforms by senior executives in Europe. The issue of careers for engineers, starting with the question of feminization, completed the picture. In particular, the session made it possible to position the Ministry of Ecology within the general reform movement. Participating researchers: Gilles Jeannot (LATTS École des Ponts), Philippe Bezes (CNRS Science Po), Konstantinos Chatzis (LATTS École des Ponts), Catherine Marry (CMH CNRS.
The fourth session on May 13, 2016, focused on the issue of remote government. First, a management issue reinforced by the creation of large regions was raised: how to manage services located several hundred kilometers away? Then the issue of distance was addressed in a more metaphorical way. Can the state, through competitions or labels, guide the actions of private companies or local authorities more effectively than through dialogue and proximity enabled by decentralized services? Participating researchers: François Hubault (Paris 1), Alexandre Mathieu Fritz (LATTS, UPEM), Renaud Epstein (University of Nantes), Grégoire Mallard (CSI École des Mines), Aurélie Tricoire (CSTB).