Upon the successful completion of the program, students will acquire the following knowledge, skills and competencies.

Knowledge
- Critically assess the key challenges facing public service provision in knowledge-based societies, with a specific focus on the Nordic countries
- Discuss the extent through which current theories, models and approaches towards public sector governance and management are adequate to solve existing problems and dilemmas
- Compare and contrast specific public governance and managerial/leadership approaches within the Nordic countries
- Apply key concepts emanating from the fields of public policy & management, organizational change, leadership, learning, innovation, and engineering education to real situations (case studies)
- Evaluate the effectiveness of policy schemes, interventions and approaches in the light of theories and models from public management, organizational studies, innovation and learning.

Skills
- Recognize and comprehend the effects of broader societal changes ? digitization, urbanization, aging, etc. ? in public sector reform and change
- Reflect on the importance attributed to contextual dimensions (e.g. culture and institutions) in reform trajectories and processes of change and resistance
- Develop and elaborate novel and innovative solutions (e.g. through design thinking) that are capable of addressing some of the challenges facing the public sector in the Nordic countries
- Master the ability to think across disciplinary fields and/or knowledge domains
- Grasp the importance of, and the existing mechanisms for, collaborating across multiple sectors of the economy

General competence
- Be able to formulate precise and relevant academic research problems
- Be able to work both as a part of a team as well as independently
- Be able to write both an academic paper as well as policy/evaluation report
- Be able to collaborate with and address multiple stakeholder audiences; academics, policy makers, regional actors across the public and private sectors, etc.
- Be able to assess, interpret and critic selected domains of public policy and/or management from the perspective of public governance/management, organisational change/leadership, innovation and learning theories
- Be able to synthesise considerable amounts of data and apply relevant methods and theories to a specific public policy domain
- Be able to undertake independent scientific work
- Be competent in undertaking highly sophisticated analytical tasks within the public and private sectors as well as R&D-related activities (employability)

The curriculum of NORDIG is comprised of four themes on the innovative governance and public management:

- Public policy and governance
- Public organizations, management and leadership
- Knowledge management & Innovation studies
- Knowledge, network and management skills