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Scholars and practitioners have, for many decades, sought to address management issues related to public sector policies. This study examines the academic research on this sector focused on these topics by conducting an automated computer analysis of 17,928 documents indexed in Scopus and published between 1950 and 2021. Six clusters were identified within this literature: economic growth during crises, reforms for the future, human relations, successful practices, partnerships and public banking services. This study thus systematises the lessons learned over the past decades, thereby contributing to governments’ ability to design public policies to meet future challenges and providing tools for dealing with the current coronavirus disease-19 pandemic.

When analysing centralised public procurement models and solutions from the public administration point of view, attention needs to be paid to the specific features of public procurement as well as the institutional characteristics of the major central procurement organisations. In this paper, central procurement organisations in 11 European countries were compared based on interviews according to their activities, market positions and institutional characteristics. We shall address the issue of efficiency and stability of organisational structures by comparing the practice of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) and non-CEE European Countries. This comparison analyses the differences of the countries’ centralised public procurement structures and reveals the diversity of analytic criteria, underlining that the legal regulatory background to public procurement is not necessarily predominant in determining specific features and characteristics. The stability and market-oriented characteristics of a centralised public procurement system have an impact on the innovativeness of central purchasing bodies (CPBs) and on the development of their service provider nature, which should be taken into account by the CEE countries with a less-developed public procurement culture.

Local authorities’ financial resources should be commensurate with the competences provided for by the law. However, in most countries, representatives of local self-governments claim that their total revenues are insufficient to deliver allocated tasks at a standard scale and level of quality. Such statements are somewhat problematic, especially in less-developed countries, where cost-center accounting is not used and service standards are not defined. This paper analyzes the relationship between the costs of delegated competences and the resources provided to cover these costs in Slovakia. We found that Slovak municipalities (with some exceptions) do not know the exact costs of delegated competences, and that the state does not cover the total costs of delegated competences, which contradicts the Slovak constitution. Our short comparison in the discussion shows that the Czech situation is very similar, suggesting that the problem might be common for all post-Soviet countries.

The aims of this article were to discuss the position of Czech nurses in the country's health care system, to assess their role in the preventive care and health literacy (HL) promotion and to define main factors, which may negatively impact their involvement in preventive care. We checked by the questionnaire, what is the position of nurses working in the primary care in the Czech health system, how nurses perceive their role in the preventive care and which factors influence their involvement. The expert opinion method was used to discover main barriers limiting the role of primary care nurses in prevention and HL promotion. A total of 204 nurses participated between May and June 2022 in an online survey. The survey was completed by interviews with five experts. Our main finding is that nurses are willing to be proactive in prevention and HL; however, their autonomy and responsibilities in these areas remain rather low. The main factors influencing the involvement of nurses in preventive care are the type of practice, age of nurses, and the administrative burden. The expert interviews propose that nurses are overloaded and that, in many cases, they do not really know their responsibilities in the field of preventive care. The core policy lesson derived from our research is that appropriate definition of roles and responsibilities of nurses and their related empowerment might represent critical measures towards increasing health system resilience and sustainability.

Open Science paradigm involves transformations throughout the entire cycle of scientific research. Decision-makers play the key role of paradigm change facilitators. Consequently, the promotion of Open Science requires a political commitment.

Even though Open Science movement emerged at the international level back in 2002, its principles are being implemented quite slowly in the Republic of Moldova.

Thus, the current study aims to analyze the importance and benefits of Open Science policy implementation, the strategic priorities of the Republic of Moldova on Open Science, barriers in transition to Open Science in the Republic of Moldova, and identification of the key actors in development, adoption, and implementation of Open Science policies in the Republic of Moldova.

The study employed a mixed method: survey among members of the scientific community (quantitative data collection) and semi-structured interviews of the key informants in Open Science policies and practices (qualitative data collection).

In recent years, gender inequality has been considered the main characteristic of insufficient gross domestic product (GDP) growth. This paper discusses the evolution of GDP per capita in 21 countries of the European Union between 2015 and 2019. Using panel regression, we investigated the change in GDP per capita through five variables. The analysis results showed that female employment rate is the most statistically significant and positive variable on GDP. Gender Equality Index also appeared to be an essential variable. The second part of our analysis consisted of an explanatory spatial data analysis of all variables to examine the spatial dimension of the variables. To explain spatial econometrics, we used selected methods, namely, choropleth maps, Local Indicators of Spatial Association (LISA) cluster analysis, Moran‘s scatter plots, and Moran‘s I statistics. Based on the visualization of choropleth maps, GDP per capita did not change during the observed period, even though the values of the explanatory variables changed. For GDP per capita, the same applies in the case of LISA cluster analysis. At the end of the monitored period, the countries were included in the same cluster as at the beginning. When plotting Moran‘s scatter plot, it was found that GDP per capita did not tend to have positive or negative spatial autocorrelation or no spatial autocorrelation. Moran‘s I statistic showed that GDP per capita values were not randomly dispersed; they were grouped according to a specific formula into clusters.

This paper aims to elaborate on the dilemmas Hungarian courts face when they appear in the forefront of policy implementation. Firstly, what kind of (legal) sources and documents should the court involve in in its legal interpretation? Secondly, what are the trade-offs between offering effective remedy sanctions and respecting the differences between branches of law and the division of power? For purpose of this analysis, we turn to the example of school segregation lawsuits between 2007 and 2022. In terms of equal and equitable education, the regulatory frameworks in the CEE Countries are harmonized to the EU standards and are strongly based on the anti-discrimination approach. In theory, policy programs and documents could be used as a source of facts, as well as a source of information regarding legislative goals and policy context. In theory, courts should aim to opt for sanctions with the most potential to achieve effective remedy. If this leads to specific policy-type sanctions, within the bounds of the parties’ actions courts should be able to decide so. However, courts tend to refrain from such sources and decisions. In the context of democratic backsliding the possibilities of such activism are somewhat unclear. Issues around the independence of the judiciary, the attitude of the executive branch towards certain social policy issues, and the practice of overwriting by amendment on part of the National Assembly supermajority may discourage courts and judges from policy-sensitive or innovative adjudication of cases with social policy relevance.