Executive Master of Public Administration

Entry requirements

Upper second class honours (2:1) degree or equivalent in any discipline, and a minimum of five years post-degree professional experience.

Months of entry

September

Course content

About the Executive MPA programme

Traditionally, you’d have to put your career on hold to study, but the LSE Executive Master of Public Administration (EMPA) helps busy professionals get a properly rigorous university degree while continuing to work. It’s a challenge. Balancing a busy work and academic life puts demands on your time, but the EMPA is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The EMPA is taught over 22 months in intense blocks which develop your core skills in economics, policy evaluation and political science whilst demonstrating how these skills can be applied in a broad range of geographies and contexts. In addition to studying compulsory courses, you will also choose option courses to further customise your EMPA experience to meet your personal and professional needs.

When you study for the EMPA, you’ll interact with senior policy-making professionals and get to learn first-hand how they approached some of the most challenging policy issues of our time. You’ll also get the chance to deepen your own understanding of the subjects that matter to you and your organisation, and the modular format ensures you can apply your learning immediately.

Our high-calibre students come from a diverse range of backgrounds and nationalities. Since the programme started, we have taught students representing 71 different nationalities working in a wide range of private and public sector organisations. This ensures you will graduate with an impressive global network united by a passion for using public policy to improve people's lives.

Above all, you’ll leave LSE with an evidence-based toolkit that you can rely on again and again to make the toughest decisions. Whether you’re self-funding or sponsored by an employer, that makes you highly valuable and well-positioned to drive your organisation to new levels of success.

The EMPA also benefits from sharing classes with the Executive Master of Public Policy programme (EMPP). The EMPP is open only to UK civil servants and is designed to train the organisation’s future leaders. The EMPP cohort is senior, experienced, and knowledgeable in contemporary public policy challenges.

School of Public Policy

The LSE School of Public Policy was founded in August 2018 with Professor Andrés Velasco appointed as its inaugural Dean. Despite being a relatively new School, we trace our particular origins back to 2003, when LSE founded a stand-alone two-year Master of Public Administration (MPA) with just 18 students, thought to be the first of its kind in UK. Our education focuses on rigorous and empirical skills and tools that underpin evidence-based policymaking. We combine this with an application of these skills to real-world problems and contexts. We are inclusive and supportive of our diverse student community, open to all enquiring minds.

Information for international students

LSE is an international community, with over 140 nationalities represented amongst its student body. We celebrate this diversity through everything we do.

If you are applying to LSE from outside of the UK then take a look at our Information for International students.

Fees and funding

Every graduate student is charged a fee for their programme. Visit the website for more information about the fees.

Funding

This programme is not eligible for LSE financial support.