Center for Public Service

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Collaborative Governance

Graduate Certificate

For Professionals, PSU Masters, and Doctoral Students

  • 100% online
  • Five courses
  • Five terms
  • Start any term
  • 16 graduate credits
  • Undergraduate degree required
  • PSU admission required

New Tools—Better Results—Public Good

Portland State University’s online Collaborative Governance Graduate Certificate equips you to collaborate across silos and sectors to improve your organization, your community, and the world.

Collaboration Skills are in High Demand

Government officials, nonprofit employees, business leaders, legal and mediation practitioners, and PSU graduate degree students can build their careers by meeting the growing demand for people who can help diverse stakeholders collaborate on solutions to public issues—solutions that no single entity could create alone.

Our Graduate Certificate is a Great Value

The Collaborative Governance Graduate Certificate builds your skills, experience, and credibility in less time and at less cost than a traditional master’s degree. And, according to the Washington Post, a graduate certificate can increase earning potential by up to 25 percent. Our online format allows you to complete the certificate in just over a year, even while you work full-time. Non-certificate students may also opt to take one or more courses individually.

Benefits

You will get: 

  • Practical, high-level training from collaborative governance experts
  • Online lectures, discussions, and coordinated group exercises using video conferencing, live chat, and other technologies that foster interaction 
  • Opportunities to work on real-world collaborative governance projects or a problem in your own workplace or community
  • Access to a network of collaborative governance practitioners

You will learn to: 

  • Build multi-organization and cross-sector partnerships to shape public policy and solve problems
  • Design and manage collaborative processes that maximize participation and seek agreement
  • Conduct negotiations and manage conflict in two-party, and multi-party settings
  • Identify power differences and address issues of equity
  • Employ computer and web-based decision and communications tools
  • Integrate relevant technical information into collaborative processes
  • Secure broad-based financial and in-kind resources
  • Participate in policy-making that addresses community needs, industry needs, economic health, the environment, and more. 

Learn from the experts

Our certificate is offered jointly by several nationally-recognized PSU institutions, including the National Policy Consensus Center, which has conducted hundreds of collaborative governance projects.

Accreditation

Portland State University is fully accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities.

Let our Collaborative Governance Graduate Certificate set you apart as a collaborative leader in an increasingly complex and interdependent world