Tackle the biggest challenges facing the public sector
Develop the skills, perspective and confidence to take the next step in public leadership and make a greater impact.
The Rising Public Leaders Programme brings together high-performing public sector professionals from around the world, ready to prepare for the demands of senior leadership.
Drawing on insights from leading scholars and practitioners, alongside the experience of your international peers, the programme will help you:
- lead people and organisations through change and uncertainty
- make better decisions in complex and high-pressure situations
- communicate and negotiate more effectively
- navigate emerging digital and technological challenges
- strengthen organisational effectiveness and integrity
- build a global network of fellow public leaders.
You will learn through classroom discussion, simulations, practical exercises and group work, applying new ideas to the challenges you face in your own organisation.
After completing the programme, you will join the Blavatnik School of Government’s community of executive alumni.
At a glance
Applications open for April 2027
Programme dates 11 - 16 April 2027
Duration6 days
LocationOxford
Cost£10,250
Inside the Rising Public Leaders Programme
Inside the Rising Public Leaders Programme
DEVELOP THE SKILLS TO LEAD IN A CHANGING WORLD
The Rising Public Leaders Programme aims to strengthen the skills that upcoming leaders need to build cultures of excellence, effectiveness, and integrity throughout the institutions they lead and across the public sector more widely.
Throughout the programme, participants work on skills and frameworks that are essential today across all branches and departments of government in any country or international institution.
Communicating effectively
Examine how leaders of public organisations communicate to best effect: internally, across government, and beyond. Develop your ability to listen and communicate with the clarity needed to gain attention amid competing messages and priorities.
These sessions will leave you with a fresh understanding of storytelling and persuasive communication as fundamental leadership skills.
Harnessing digital technology
You will explore the complex political, regulatory, and technological challenges leaders face, using a case study on the development of 5G technology.
You will also examine questions of cybersecurity and emerging threats enhanced by artificial intelligence, before exploring a digital policy or technology issue most relevant to you and your organisation.
Reducing cognitive bias in decision-making
Explore framing bias, confirmation bias, overconfidence bias, and sunk-cost bias, as well as examples of groupthink.
You will consider the consequences for decision-making and test some simple techniques to overcome these biases in individual and group decisions.
Strengthening organisational effectiveness
Understand the trends and cycles in organisational reform and examine the evidence behind approaches ranging from radical reform to incremental improvement.
You will look at the tools that different administrations use to improve performance, including target-setting, data generation and outsourcing.
Negotiating in the public interest
Refresh and extend your familiarity with core concepts and expand your knowledge of more advanced negotiation tactics.
Through interactive simulations, you will learn and practise specific analytical tools for conducting multi-stakeholder deliberations across international boundaries, with powerful commercial interests and multiple governments.
Maintaining personal integrity
Develop a stronger moral language for understanding ethical challenges and have greater confidence in handling the pressures that public leaders inevitably face.
Examine how difficult it can be to recognise integrity, understand the factors that cloud our ethical decisions, and appreciate the long-term damage to one’s leadership that can flow from a single misjudgement.
Kow Essuman, Legal Counsel to the President of Ghana, 2023 participant
What a valuable six days that changed my way of thinking. This amazing and powerful programme broadened my view, and provided me with the effective tools and frameworks for communication and for building credibility. This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to learn to be an inspiring leader and take steps forward to change the world.
I will never forget what I learned and got here. All of them will be my precious lifelong memory. All of the people I met here are part of my life. This is an amazing and outstanding programme which I highly recommend.
Erik Hovsepyan, Head of International Cooperation and Investment Programmes Department, Urban Development Committee, Government of the Republic of Armenia, 2024 participant
Meet the faculty
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The Oxford experience
Our programmes immerse you in the intellectual culture of Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world. Its excellence and international profile rival those of any university in the world, and the University has been educating global leaders for over 800 years.
Our residential programmes, as well as our fellowships, offer opportunities to explore the city and its famous colleges. Many include walking tours of the city’s most important historical and politically relevant places, as well as formal dinners in centuries-old Oxford dining halls.
The programme combines this historic setting with a contemporary learning environment at the award-winning Blavatnik School of Government building.
When joining us in Oxford, you will be tapping into the extraordinary depth and breadth of research excellence found at Oxford University, as well as its power to convene people from all over the world. All of our executive programmes are led by members of the Blavatnik School faculty, who are leading Oxford professors and associate professors.
This was one of the best learning and development experiences I’ve ever had. The topics were highly relevant to anyone in public service and there was also a huge range of learning methods employed. By the end of it you’ll be hugely energised and ready to take the learning home and apply it immediately.
Keith Moynes, Assistant Secretary General, Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Government of Ireland, 2022 participant
This was an exceptional course, superbly organised and delivered by a high calibre team. It is rare to be given the time and opportunity to step back and reflect on what being a thoughtful leader really entails; and the course was significantly enriched by the experiences and contributions from its highly diverse cohort.
Chris Hobley, Director of Strategy at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), UK Government, 2024 participant
Take the next step
If you have any questions about the programme, contact us at executive.admissions@bsg.ox.ac.uk.
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