From September 16 to September 17, 2023, the Annual meeting of the Northwest Regional MPA Alliance was held in Yan’an University. Li Peng, a member of the National Steering Committee of Graduate Education for Public Administration Degree, Lv Da, Vice President of Yan’an University, experts, scholars, college leaders and teachers’ representatives from more than 20 colleges and universities in Northwest China, as well as Inner Mongolia University of Finance and Economics, Southwest Minzu University, Inner Mongolia Medical University, Baotou Teachers’ College, China Renmin University Press, and Beijing Huatu New World Science and Technology Company Ltd. gathered for the grand event.

This annual conference is organized by the School of Politics, Law & Public Administration of Yan’an University, and Feng Zhihong, Dean of this school, presided over the opening ceremony. LUSM’s Young Professor Bao Haixu, Deputy Director of Education Center for Professional Degree, and Yin Jie, Deputy Director of Office of Professional Degree Education, attended the annual conference.

At the opening ceremony, Lv Da delivered a welcome speech on behalf of Yan’an University, extending a warm welcome to all esteemed guests and providing a concise overview of the development and establishment of both Yan’an University and its School of Politics, Law & Public Administration. He emphasized that this annual meeting serves as an invaluable opportunity for fruitful exchanges and discussions with distinguished experts and scholars in order to further enhance educational reforms, elevate professional standards, enrich academic quality, foster innovative approaches to talent education, and propel the high-quality advancement of MPA education in Northwest China.

In the keynote report session, Bao Haixu combined the MPA construction of LUSM with the theme of “Development of MPA Program in LUSM”, shared the initiatives and experiences of LUSM in the whole process of MPA talent education, and proposed that the future development of MPA education should be based on the market demand, optimize the curricular system, focus on the comprehensive enhancement of students’ comprehensive management ability, explore the empowerment of emerging information technology, and serve the national economic and social development of high quality.

Prof. Li Peng , member of the National MPA Education Steering Committee, Prof. Du Zhimin, Secretary of the Party Committee of School of Humanities of Chang’an University, and Prof. Jin Yongshu, School of Public Administration, Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, shared their experiences on the exploration of talent education practice under the perspective of high-quality development, the challenges and reflections in the new period, and the thesis standardization and quality improvement respectively.

In the afternoon’s experience exchange session, the persons in charge of the colleges and faculty representatives of each MPA institution introduced the basic situation, characteristic advantages and challenges faced by their MPA schools respectively. The participants fully exchanged and discussed the topics of team building, curriculum system improvement, case teaching experience, enrollment and education management, quality improvement of talent education, dissertation writing and standardization in the development of MPA education and teaching, etc. They freely shared their views and engaged in a mutual learning process through the exchange of experiences, aiming to foster common growth.

The closing ceremony was hosted by Associate Prof. Wang Feng, Associate Dean of the School of Politics, Law & Public Administration of Yan’an University, with representatives of each group reporting on the group discussions and Prof. Feng Zhihong making concluding remarks. The closing ceremony announced that the 10th Annual Meeting of the Northwest MPA Alliance would be hosted by the School of Public Administration of Gansu University of Political Science and Law, and associate Prof. Xu Yicheng, the school’s Associate Dean made a statement on this decision.

The successful holding of this annual meeting has established an exchange platform for MPA training institutions in the Northwest region in terms of curriculum construction and talent education, which has positively promoted the common development of MPA education in Northwest China.