Online Seminar Series

Connect with leading voices shaping public service accounting and accountability

The PSAAG Online Seminar Series offers a space for lively exchange on emerging research in public sector accounting and accountability. Each year we invite a line-up of leading scholars whose work addresses issues at the heart of our community’s concerns. These sessions are open, interactive, and designed to connect researchers across institutions and borders, making cutting-edge insights accessible to all.

Upcoming Online Seminars

Our next IRSPM Public Services Accounting and Accountability Group online seminar is with Sandra Cohen from the Athens University of Economics and Business! It will take place on 11 May 2026 at 13:00-14:30 London (UK) time. Please find an abstract of the session below and register/join with this link: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/d87039b5-ae26-4539-b603-9836d9d8e0e7@7250d88b-4b68-4529-be44-d59a2d8a6f94

Sustainability in the public sector: A discussion on the challenges of reporting and the relevance of accounting

The public sector can act as a significant gatekeeper for sustainability. By setting the targets that the private and the public sector needs to abide by, but also by acting in a sustainability-friendly manner. Public sector entities report on sustainability issues in different ways and by adopting different frameworks, mostly on a voluntary basis. This pluralism, albeit rich in sustainability information that touches upon environmental and social features, is characterised by limited comparability among entities and connectivity with financial information.

The issue of the first accounting sustainability standard for the public sector by IPSASB at the end of 2025, after considerable adjustments compared to the corresponding exposure draft, signals the commencement of a new era in public sector sustainability reporting and provides evidence that the particularities of the public sector ask for frameworks that transcend the conceptual boundaries of the private sector effect spheres.

The presentation will focus on the existing pluralistic landscape of sustainability reporting in the public sector that is reflected in, among others, SDG reporting, gender budgeting, green budgeting, integrated popular reporting and the place of IPSASB sustainability standards in this ecosystem. In parallel, it will discuss the role and relevance of accounting in public sector sustainability by focusing on the idea of connectivity between the financial and the non-financial information that brings accounting, and not just reporting, closer to the idea of sustainability.

Please note the above dates for your diaries, and we will be in touch regarding further details (i.e. seminar titles and zoom links) in due course. If you have any questions regarding these events, please get in touch with our online seminar organiser, Florian Gebreiter (florian.gebreiter@durham.ac.uk).

Previous Online Seminars

Andrea Mennicken - 24 November 2025, 13:00-14:30 London time
Zahirul Hoque – 26 November 2024, 13:00-14:30 London time
Adina Dudau – 7 October 2024, 13:00-14:30 London time
Daniela Argento – 4 June 2024, 13:00-14:30 London time
Berend van der Kolk - 24 April 2024, 11:00-12:30 London time
Lee Parker (University of Glasgow) - 22 November 2023, 10:00-11:30 London time
Ileana Steccolini (University of Essex and University of Bologna) - 5 October 2023, 13:00-14:30 London time
Mariann Liguori (Durham University) - 13 June 2023, 13:00-14:30 London time
Justin Marlowe (University of Chicago) - 23 March 2023, 15:00-16:30 London time
Danture Wickramasinghe (University of Glasgow) - 23 November 2022, 13:00-14:30 London time
Chris Chapman (University of Bristol), Anja Kern (DHBW Mosbach) & Aziza Laguecir (EDHEC) - 13 October 2022, 13:00-14:30 London time
Ringa Raudla (Talinn University of Technology) - 28 April 2022, 9:00-10:30 London time
Vaughan Radcliffe (Ivey Business School) - 16 February 2022, 15:00-16:30 London time

We will keep you posted about the Seminars on LinkedIn as well as here.

If you are holding an online seminar related to accounting and accountability in the public sector and you would like us to advertise it through our network, please get in touch with Florian Gebreiter.