The International Institute of Administrative Sciences (IIAS) is a learned society in public administration, established in 1930 to design public administration solutions to the policy challenges of the day.

To celebrate its 90th anniversary, it organizes its 2020 Conference in Brussels, the host city of the institution. The Federal Public Service Finances hosts the IIAS Secretariat, and the Conference in the Finance Tower.

The IIAS 2020 Conference addresses the theme of Public Governance for Climate Action.

Climate change is an increasingly salient policy issue:

• There is a increasing consensus that climate is changing, impacting human and natural systems
• Society is increasingly polarized on the issue, portraying an emerging political conflict between ways of life and their respective partisans
• It figures high on the top of the agenda of international organizations such as the European Union, the World Governance Summit and the United Nations
• By framing Climate Change as “The Ultimate Wicked Issue”, the late Christopher Pollitt (2016) makes it amenable to the public administration solutions the field has been developing for wicked issues for two decades.

Accordingly, in its call-for-proposal, the IIAS has invited its network to revisit these public administration approaches to wicked issues with the challenge of Climate Change in mind. Five streams emerge from the received proposals, all constituting the present call-for-contributions:

• Public Governance for Climate Action
• Collaborative Governance
• Evidence-based Policy
• Innovative Policy Solutions
• Resilience Studies