Upcoming Events

• Reinventing Governance Conference, October 2010 
• Global Governance Conference, Spring 2011, Oxford – We are in the midst of planning, so check back soon for dates and more information!

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Reinventing Governance: An Interdisciplinary Conference to Enhance Multi-stakeholder Decision-making Through Insights from Conflict Professionals

Where: Boulder, Colorado, USA

When: October 8-10, 2010 (Includes one free day of preconference workshops)

Summary: Reinventing Governance focuses attention on the need for the invention of institutions and processes by which commercial, civic, and government sectors work together to make quality public decisions — the need to see governance as more than government.  The conference brings together interdisciplinary professionals and business leaders to engage specific case studies and develop workable steps toward the development of innovative and productive inter-sector governance practices by focusing on the cultural, institutional, and design processes requisites for productive, cooperative and peaceful communities.

Why this conference, now?

1. The environmental, economic, and social challenges facing business, communities, nations, and the world as a whole are becoming increasingly complex and intertwined.  Current practices of government, public deliberation, and sector independence are often not providing the creative and sustainable decisions needed.
2. In order to act effectively in this environment, new forms of decision making and governance must be established that allow for greater creativity, flexibility, and collaboration across boundaries. New governance processes provide the possibility of higher quality decisions, higher degrees of decisional legitimacy, creative answers to diverse complex human goals, better assurance of social good and commercially successful business practices, and the reduction of unproductive conflict and violence.  
3. Four different and often disconnected communities have been significant in advancing new decision making practices and can gain from joint discussions:
   • members of the business community promoting more socially responsible and sustainable business and working directly with local communities; 
   • government officials, academics and NGOs working to improve the institutions of governance;
   • specialists in processes of dialogue, deliberation and community decision making; and 
   • professionals and activists in peace building and alternative dispute resolution. 

The conference is designed to 1) establish new relationships among participants from these four groups, 2) take the best ideas from the four communities and synthesize them into a broader set of principles of collaborative governance, 3) disseminate these and other related ideas on a post-conference website, 4) continue the “conversation” among participants and others through online discussions, and 5) develop education and training materials on innovative governance that will be distributed through the Conflict Information Consortium and partner websites and integrated into CU courses.

Conference Details

For more information on this conference, including case study submission, workshop topics, featured speakers, and registration details, please see the conference website at the University of Colorado - Boulder's Center for the Study of Conflict, Collaboration, and Creative Governance.

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