About Centre
The concept of governance has increasingly become an important concept for social and political thought as well as an influential idea in broader public debates about social and political issues. In its broadest sense, the study of governance examines human interaction and its coordination, in and between organizations and communities. It asks what forms, processes and mechanisms of governance are, as well as what they should be.
Created in 1997 at the University of Ottawa by Professor Gilles Paquet at a time when these debates had barely begun, the Centre on Governance is now a part of the School of Political Studies, in the Faculty of Social Sciences, and in partnership with the School of Management.
In its first six years, the Centre on Governance was involved in research and knowledge dissemination activities regarding virtually all dimensions of governance. The Centre now focuses its activities in four main areas of research, described below. The Centre aims to be a catalyst for research, a knowledge dissemination instrument, a forum where scholars and their partners outside the University can come together to explore governance in its many dimensions.
The Centre on Governance will become what the research community and its partners in the social, government and private sectors want it to be. We have first sought to formulate a few research axes with which University of Ottawa scholars of governance could identify. These axes will evolve, new ones will be added - and some may fall away when their relevance fades. We invite all those who seek a forum for discussion and debate, for coming together in the multifaceted study of governance; a research catalyst; a way to disseminate academic knowledge and to work with partners from the several communities around the University. The Centre on Governance is there for you.
The Board of Directors