Its mission is to increase knowledge about public governance, with a focus on local development and guaranteeing the rights of citizenship, by way of an approach that prioritizes field research that  produces, stores, systematizes and disseminates ideas, data and information with special attention being paid to public action innovation. This helps form researchers and managers who are capable of contributing towards a better understanding of and consequent action with regard to diversity in national realities, of facing up to the challenges encountered in Brazilian public management and of overcoming inequalities.