Internationaler Speyerer Qualitätswettbewerb

Information in English

General information 

The Speyer Quality Award was founded in 1992 by Prof. Dr. Hermann Hill and Prof. Dr. Helmut Klages at the German University of Administrative Sciences in Speyer. 

The University is the only postgraduate University for public administrations in Germany. It was founded in 1947 by the French occupying power in Rhineland-Palatinate following the example of the Ecole nationale d’administration (ENA). The body responsible for the School are all sixteen German States (Länder) and the Federal Government.  
The work of the Univerisity covers three broad activities in the field of administrative sciences: post-graduate education; in-service training; and research. The close association between the theoretical science of administration and its practical application has not only proven to be extremely useful for teaching, but has also provided the impetus for projects like the Speyer Quality Award. 

The 1st Speyer Quality Award 1992 went on from a project of the Canadian audit office with the topic "Well performing organizations". In addition other international quality competitions like the Malcolm Baldridge Quality Award in the United States or the European Quality Award were considered. From private management the guidelines like DIN EN ISO 9000 ff., from the public area the initiatives of the Kommunale Gemeinschaftsstelle KGSt (Local Government Management Board) with regard to the “New Steering Model” (Neuses Steuerungsmodell-NSM), the German variant of New Public Management as well as the work of the Bertelsmann Foundation with its international and national network of reform-oriented local governments have been taken into account. 
Since the 3rd Speyer Quality Award 1996 also Austrian and Swiss public administrations are asked to take part in the Competition.

The federal governments from Germany, Austria and Switzerland are financially supporting the award since 2002.  

Aims 

It is the intention of the Speyer Quality Award to support the modernisation of public administrations. Through the exchange of views during the course and after the competition the participating administrations are given the opportunity to learn from each other and to orient their modernisation efforts towards internationally acknowledged standards. 
 The Competition is open for the whole public sector. It covers federal, state and local administration including public enterprises and public-private-partnerships. For instance in recent years schools, universities, museums, courts or insurance companies applied. The solely precondition is that the applicant is a separate organisational unit with a certain degree of autonomy and independence. 

Benefits for public administrations  

Candidate organisations can obtain the necessary information regarding the award in a brochure.

A lot of administrations, which took part in the former rounds of the Competition, have confirmed that this procedure has the effect of a guided organisational analysis. With this tool adequately used, public administrations can put their own organisation under close scrutiny, for example in project groups, and then modernise it continuously. Benchmarking with other administrations and the exchange of views during the congress at the end of the competition foster the achievement principle and motivate participants for further improvement of the own administration. This is part of an active knowledge management of public organisations. 
In the second part of the application, each organization can select one ore more theme areas, where they set up priorities. In 2005, there were six theme areas: Quality Management, Budget and Accural planing, Fight against corruption, Partnershipsin the public sector, Electronic Government, Human Resources Management.

A working group of each theme area assesses the applications and then decides, which applicant will be inspected onsite. Finally, in a meeting with the advisory board, the awards are selected. 

Since 1992: Seven competition rounds

For the Speyer Quality Awards modern management and quality concepts from the private and the public area, the national and the international level are analysed continuously and worked in the current competition. The planning and realisation of the competition is therefore steadily improved. Experts from universities, public organizations and from the private sector are members of the advisory board, who oversees the award. 

Further information
For further information please contact:

Speyerer Qualitätswettbewerb

Deutsche Hochschule für Verwaltungswissenschaften Speyer 
Freiherr-vom-Stein-Str. 2 
67346 Speyer 

Germany

Office of Professor Dr. Hermann Hill

phone: +49 (0 )6232 654-316 
fax: +49 (0) 6232 654-308 
e-mail  benz@dhv-speyer.de 

 

Stand: 15.12.2005