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Dear Ms,

Dear Sir,

Globally, governments look at public private partnerships for investments, public service delivery and innovation in these times of shrinking government budgets. Partnerships between governments and private actors are even believed to be much needed instruments to face the grand societal challenges, like climate change, clean energy, smart and green transport, and secure societies. However, many existing PPP’s face hardship because of economic downturn. Moreover, because of increasingly risk-averse actors, securing commitment, finance and maximizing collaboration, innovation and value for money through PPP’s become enormous challenges. There is a pressing need for cross-disciplinary, cross-sectoral, cross-country analyses and solutions.

On 6 and 7 November 2013, in the frame of the EU-funded COST Action ‘P3T3 - PPP’s in transport-trends and theory’ (TU 1001), the Department of Transport and Regional Economics, the Research Unit on Public Administration & Management (Department of Political Sciences), the Law Faculty of the University of Antwerp and the Antwerp Management School will jointly host a two-day international conference on Public-Private Partnerships under the title ‘Global challenges in PPP : cross-sectoral and cross-disciplinary solutions?’. It will be held at the University of Antwerp, Belgium.

The preliminary conference program can be found here. Specific topics are dealing with all fields where PPP’s are or can be applied: transport infrastructure, energy, health care, education, sports facilities, urban renewal, environmental development etc.

We now invite you to register.The conference is open interested academics, researchers and Phd students, as well as reflexive practitioners and policy makers active in the PPP field. Registration is possible through the conference registration page.

This conference is co-organised by the Policy Research Centre Governmental Organization - Decisive Government, Policy Research Centre on Commodity and Passenger Flows, TransportNET, Antwerp Knowledge Centre on Transport and Maritime Law (Actramar), UNECE International PPP Centre of Excellence, the Flemish Knowledge Centre on PPP and the European Procurement and Public Private Partnership Law Review.

Confirmed keynote speakers and panel members:

- Prof. dr Akintoye, Dean of School of Built and Natural Environment, University of Central lancashire / MC member of COST Action TU1001

- Prof. dr. Chris Bovis, HK Bevan Chair in Law, University of Hull

- Prof. dr. Carsten Greve, Department of Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School

- Prof. dr. Graeme Hodge, Director of the Monash Centre for Regulatory Studies, law Faculty at Monash University

- Prof. Athena Roumboutsos, Department of Shipping, Trade and Transport, University of the Aegean / Chair of COST Action TU1001

- Prof. José Viegas (Secretary-General International Transport Forum)

This conference is not just an academic conference on PPP, but has a number of specific features:

•   High-profile key note speakers from the PPP academic community and high level policy community

•   Finished research and as well ‘research in process’  can be presented and discussed;

•   PhD students can present and discuss their research projects extensively on three dedicated parallel PhD seminars on Thursday afternoon

•   Network possibilities for researchers and practitioners

•   Confrontation of PPP research with insights and needs of practitioners and policy makers

•   Focus on intersectorality: the conference has the aim to enhance the mutual learning between different sectoral fields where PPP’s can be applied, so as to derive cross-sectoral conclusions

•   Focus on interdisciplinarity, i.e. all disciplines will be treated (engineering, economics & accounting, legal, public management, political science…) and will confront their insights;

•   The subject is theory as well as empirics, secondly derived products;

•   New research areas and opportunities for private actors will be dealt with.

With kind regards,

The local organising Committee:

Prof. dr. Thierry Vanelslander (Department of Transport and Regional Economics, University of Antwerp – vice chair COST Action TU1001)

Prof. dr. Koen Verhoest & Prof.dr. Wouter van Dooren (Research Group on Public Administration & Management, University of Antwerp – Chair of Auxiliary Working Group 2 COST Action TU1001)

Prof. dr. Steven Van Garsse (Research Group on Government and Law, University of Antwerp + Antwerp Management School)

Prof. dr. Patrick Kenis (Antwerp Management School)