Reconstructing the field of studies on Public Policies evaluation at Spanish public universities

In January 2023, the Law for the Institutionalisation of Public Policy Evaluation in the General State Administration came into force in Spain. This law takes an important step by establishing the evaluation of public policies (EPP) as an instrument to improve the effective and efficient use of public resources and to make the decision -making process more transparent. This requires trained personnel to carry out evaluations. The aim of this article is to present how university education in EPP is structured in the public universities of Spain and how the various university degrees linked mainly to Political Science incorporate courses on public policy analysis and evaluation. Based on the observation and analysis of the presence of these courses in universities, this study shows in the development of political science studies, EPP is at an incipient stage, this being a relatively young approach in Spain within the realm of Political Science and partially limited to a few universities. The proportion of academic credits in public policy analysis and evaluation out of the overall volume of courses is marginal. This implies that in terms of the skillset attained at the end of university education and its transfer to the workplace, it vastly depends on certain universities and the completion of their coursework.