Leading Public Innovation

Program Overview

Today’s fiscal constraints, community needs, and urgency to revitalize public institutions demand new approaches to innovation. This certificate program helps public service professionals lead transformative change to improve customers’ experiences of public programs and services using applied knowledge, frameworks, and tools drawn from research, theory, and practice.

Participants take four graduate courses over eight months at UW, delivered in a hybrid format accessible to working professionals. Experiential, interactive coursework and customized learning enables them to co-create improvements in the public systems and services they manage. Participants improve their ability to:

• Apply human-centered design and engagement methods to improve the speed, accessibility, uptake, equity, and effectiveness of public programs and services;
• Think strategically and act courageously;
• Collaborate across agencies to integrate knowledge and transform institutional operations and service delivery using a tool kit of shared practices and terms.