This major has the master degree and doctoral degree program and is regarded as the key discipline on the national level and provincial level in Beijing.

The Department of Public Administration (Institute of Public Administration) of Renmin University of China (RUC) has taken a prominent place in the development of this subject and the process of relevant talents nurturing in China. It responds to the demands put forward by the reforming and opening-up trend to make the government management more scientific, more democratic, and more effective. It combines public administration researches, teaching and training, and social service all together. Besides, it is the first administration teaching and research unit in China's higher education system (1986); the first administration master degree program in China (1988); one of the first batch institutions of doctoral degree programs in China (1998). In 2003, Beijing municipal government and Beijing municipal education commission had granted it "the Municipal Key Discipline"; in 2007, Ministry of Education in China had awarded it "the National Key Discipline of Administration". It has exerted an extensive influence of this field at home and abroad.

The very mission of this major is to keep up with the updates of public administrative theories for a solid theoretical foundation; to focus on the practice of public administration for a better understanding of times trend; to base on specialized researches pursuing for international perspectives; to develop the counseling service of government and the whole society for exploring a wider field of this major; to enhance the comprehensive capacity of human resources for a stronger subject influence.

In those 30 years, a comparatively integral system has been come in being which includes public administration scientific research, teaching and training, and social service. In this system, undergraduate students, postgraduate students, doctoral students and MPA on-job postgraduates and full-time postgraduates are cultivated. Revolved around the administration theories and practical studies, this system is oriented to improve students' academic abilities and solve practical problems. It has widened several study fields such as theoretical fundamentals and practices of administration, public organizations and human resources management, public policy, and administrative leadership. A bunch of principal courses are set up covering public administration (administrative reform thematic studies), administrative law, public economics, public organization theory, human resources management in public sector, analysis and evaluation of public policy. Ever since flexible educational system has been taken into force, major elective courses are offered successively, including contemporarily local governance, the art of leadership in the 21st century, non-profit organizations, crisis and conflict management, coordination, negotiation and communication management, community management. All those courses attune to the needs. As the first batch of universities having doctoral degree program, we put the training of high quality doctors as our first priority. Hence, a strict and standard training project and process whose guidance is public administration academic researches is come into being. The research directions of Ph.D. students are theory and practice of public administration, comparative public administration, studies of administrative philosophy and its culture, public policy research, research on local governance, public organizations and personnel administration research and Chinese administrative reform. The courses include studies on methodology, discipline frontiers, the masterpiece reading-guide and seminars.

Public Administration department contains a group of academically accomplished well-known scholars and teachers whose knowledge matches with the structure reasonably. They are well- learned with rigorous scholarship, broad vision, and the quality of being teachers, thus making an excellent research team. Most young teachers obtain the doctorate degree in public administration of Renmin University, Beijing University, Nankai University, and other teachers are the scholars of Tsinghua University postdoctoral mobile program. 100% full-time teachers are holding doctoral degree. In this team, there are 8 doctoral supervisors; and at present, there are 19 full-time master instructors.

It has been 20 years since this department was set up in 1995. Those 20 years have witnessed rich academic results yielded. And scholars have composed and published a series of public administration textbooks, published a majority of high quality papers, and translated a batch of foreign administration classics. All those results are well-received in the administrative field of China, which, at the same time, also lay a firm foundation for training high-level postgraduate students. Public administration which is accustomed to the requirements of practical issues in public administration is dedicated to dominant researches in the reform of our country's administrative system to do much more efforts achieving internationalization and localization of this discipline.

This major shares collaborated relations with George • Washington University, American University, California State University, Madison University, the University of Maryland, Alaska State University, the University of Manchester, University of Leeds; Monash University, Australia, Seoul National University, Korea University; National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and Taiwan University, National Chengchi University, Chinese Culture University, Zhongshan University, Hong Kong University, Chinese University of Hong Kong and the City University of Hong Kong. The administration major also has exchange and communication with the counterpart in famous universities in China, such as Peking University, Tsinghua University, Beijing Normal University, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Zhongshan University, Wuhan University, Zhejiang University, Xiamen University, Xi'an Jiaotong University. All those enables the public administration department to stand in the forefront of academic in academic administration field, which has provided a broad academic space for postgraduate training.

Institute of Public Administration was established in 1986. From then to now, it has already cultivated 28 sessions of Public Administration postgraduate students and 20 of PhD students. Many of them have become the dominant force in government agencies, universities and a variety of enterprises and institutions; others have already become major leaders. Positive social feedbacks are received.