VIII Public Sector Accounting & Data Analytics Colloquium and 59th World Continuous Auditing & Reporting Symposia

FGV’s Applied Research Center in Accounting and Analytics (ARC-A&A) has joined with the coordinators of the FGV EBAPE’s professional master’s in public administration and the coordinators of the FGV EBAPE’s MSc & PhD in administration and is partnering with Rutgers University’s Accounting Research Center and the Laboratory of Continuous Auditing and Reporting (Carlab), Santa Catarina Federal University (UFSC) master in science Accountancy, and the Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ) master in science Accountancy to present the VIII Public Sector Accounting & Data Analytics Colloquium and the 59^th World Continuous Auditing & Reporting Symposia on December 4^th and 5^th 2023.

This is the eighth colloquium co-organized by FGV and Rutgers University. Previous colloquia were in November/December 2022, December 2021, December 2020, June 2019, June 2018, May 2017 and May 2016 and were held at FGV EBAPE in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (https://ebape.fgv.br/en/school).

The purpose of the colloquium is to analyze the growing demand for transparency and accountability in the management of public resources, which requires government auditors to provide assurances about the performance of government programs and the financial position of government entities that must have their resources properly allocated.

The 2023 colloquium will keep the blended modality that was first adopted in 2022. The first four colloquia were held in person. The V and VI colloquia were held remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, we combined the best of both models, which allowed us to have personal interactions as in the past but, importantly, to connect with people who were previously unable to travel to Rio de Janeiro. The 2023 colloquium offers two important improvements. One is logistics: it will be delivered in three venues: Rio de Janeiro (FGV-EBAPE), Florianópolis (UFSC), and Newark (Rutgers Business University), all connected in real time through Zoom. The aim is to reduce participation costs and the colloquium’s “environmental footprint”: researchers can choose which venue they want to attend in person. The other improvement relates to the academic program; researchers keen to submit a paper to Public Money & Management’s upcoming theme on “Data science and financial information in the public sector—challenges for accounting and accountability” are being offered the opportunity to present the preliminary version of their manuscript (working papers) at the colloquium—see below.

This two-day event will involve a total workload of 14 hours: we will have six one-hour lectures on the use of data analytics for big data analysis in the context of public accounting, government control and public finance, or that propose the use of data analytics for the public good; and the presentation of five working papers. Additionally, the organizers will present updated news about the Virtual International Collaboration Education (VICE) to the academic community; the World Bank staff will present the goals and first experiences of the Public Sector Accounting and Reporting (PULSAR) Program; and the guest editors of Public Money & Management’s theme issue will present relevant advice for researchers aiming to submit their manuscript to the theme.