Giliberto Capano (University of Bologna)

Giliberto Capano is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Bologna, where he was Dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences. He is one of the editors of the prestigious and highly-ranked journal Policy & Society. He was a member of the Executive Committee of the International Political Science Association (2009-2014) and of the Executive Committee of the European Consortium of Political Research (2018-2024). In 2014, he was one of the 12 founders of the International Public Policy Association, of which he is still a member of the Executive Committee. He specialises in public administration and public policy. His research focuses on governance dynamics and performance in higher education and education; policy design and policy change; the impact and performance of policy instruments; the social role and impact of political science and public policy; crisis governance; policy capacities and policy making. He has (co-)authored eleven monographs and (co-)edited eighteen books; his work has been published in the leading international journals of public policy and public administration, and he is ranked in the top 2% of the world's most impactful scholars by the Stanford Ranking. He has acted as a consultant and reviewer for various Italian public administrations and has taught executive courses for the National Schools of Public Administration of various countries, such as Italy, Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Australia and Italy.

Course: Conceptualising and Measuring Policy Design. Instruments, Policy Capacity, Robustness

Policy design is more than choosing tools—it is the architecture of collective action. This five-day course equips early-career researchers with the conceptual precision and measurement strategies needed to study how governments design policy and why those choices matter. The programme places conceptualisation first, then treats measurement as craft: translating ideas into indicators without losing meaning, and ensuring measures travel across cases and time.

We begin with fundamentals: what is policy design, and what constrains it? Participants learn to map the design space—the feasible options shaped by legal authority, resources, political conflict, and problem complexity. Understanding this space explains why some instruments become thinkable while others remain off the table, and how space expands or contracts after crises, reforms, or fiscal shocks.

From there, we move to policy instruments and their micro-design: the calibration, targeting, discretion, and enforcement rules that determine how interventions work. We link design choices to causal mechanisms—incentives, constraints, learning, compliance—and to their distributive effects. Participants discover how seemingly technical decisions carry profound political implications.

We then examine instrument mixes as portfolios embodying broader design logics. How do combinations interact—through complementarity, conflict, or redundancy? When do mixes stabilise policies, and when do they generate drift or incoherence? Sequencing and layering over time receive particular attention.

Policy capacity receives dedicated focus as both an enabler and a constraint of ambitious design. We unpack analytical, operational, and political dimensions, exploring what happens when designs exceed available capacity—and how smart design adapts to limitations rather than ignoring them. Understanding capacity helps explain why similar designs succeed in some contexts and fail in others.

The course culminates with robustness: how designs perform under uncertainty, shocks, and contestation. Participants develop tools to assess whether a policy will prove adaptive or brittle when its assumptions fail, connecting robustness to instruments and capacity in an integrated analytical framework.

Each session includes hands-on measurement work: coding instruments, mapping mixes, selecting capacity indicators, and stress-testing designs. Participants leave with a compact research portfolio that connects clear concepts to credible inferences.

Afternoon Programme

Mornings build knowledge; afternoons sharpen skills. Participants either present their own research projects on policy design, instruments, or capacity—receiving targeted feedback on how to refine their conceptualisation and measurement approaches—or work in groups on applied analytical exercises, systematically examining real policy cases through the conceptual and methodological lenses introduced in the morning lectures.