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GEST-S552

Field project : Public management

academic year
2025-2026
2026-2027

Course teacher(s)

Jean MATTIJS (Coordinator) and Jean-Jacques VIALA

ECTS credits

5

Language(s) of instruction

english

Course content

The field projects are an important part of students’ final training and a way to get accustomed to professional practice in the final year of their degree. Students will show their ability to collaborate in a self-managed team and deliver a useful analysis about a topic submitted by a client organization. Students will learn how to organize for a consultancy project, communicate with the client and a variety of stakeholders and deliver a professional, timely and valuable service.

Detailed content depends entirely on the demands of the client organizations. For the Field projects in Public & Nonprofit Management, the topics mostly revolve around strategic analysis and marketing, organizational and personnel issues, stakeholder opinions, design and transformation of services, and sometimes finance and budget issues. The client organizations are mostly public administrations or enterprises at international, federal, or local level, dealing with land use, education, public health, social services, etc. Not-for-profit organizations and development NGOs also regularly ask for support.

Objectives (and/or specific learning outcomes)

  • Plan the resources, tasks and interventions of each person in order to achieve the project objectives.
  • Critically analyse a business situation based on state-of-the-art theories and conceptual frameworks and on available evidence.
  • Propose innovative, sustainable, and realistic approaches and solutions.
  • Implement a project and make it operational.
  • Adopt an effective and pragmatic professional stance to perform a large amount of work, even under pressure.
  • Be aware of the context and have a systemic, strategic perspective on the issues at stake (not only a narrow specialist view).

Teaching methods and learning activities

Immersion in a real-world organizational issue presented by an external client organization. The students do a consulting mission for their client, engaging the client professionally and managing the project. The client supports them to achieve effective collaboration. The academic supervisor offers remote mentoring and evaluation.

References, bibliography, and recommended reading

Block, Peter (2011) Flawless consulting : a guide to getting your expertise used, 3rd ed., San Francisco : Pfeiffer, 2011.

Course notes

  • Université virtuelle

Contribution to the teaching profile

The MFP contributes to the following competences of the MA Management science:

  • LO 1.1: Integrate sustainable development into problem analysis
  • LO 1.2: Master and apply key economic and management concepts, frameworks and theories in a professional context to identify a business opportunity and build a relevant innovative solution to it
  • LO 1.3: Approach a managerial or business problem within different disciplinary frameworks (law, communication, psychology, etc.) and taking external factors into consideration
  • LO 2.1: Adopt a scientific approach to data collection, research and analysis and communicate results with clear, structured and sophisticated arguments
  • LO 4.1 Work and communicate effectively as part of a team in an international and multicultural environment
  • LO 4.2 Demonstrate a strong work ethic to foster a socially responsible behaviour in the workplace

Other information

Contacts

jan.mattijs@ulb.ac.be

Campus

Solbosch, Outside campus ULB

Evaluation

Method(s) of evaluation

  • Practice work
  • Project
  • Group work

Practice work

Project

Group work

The grade is given by the tutoring teacher, considering the results of the project as evidenced by the project’s deliverables, the client organization’s feedback, and the project management process.

Mark calculation method (including weighting of intermediary marks)

All three elements above (process, quality of deliverables and client judgement) count. Failure in one single of these aspects may be enough to fail the course. The mission should in principle be carried on and improved until a good result is achieved.

Language(s) of evaluation

  • english
  • french

Programmes