Joint EAA Education Committee and EAA Public Sector Accounting Committee panel entitled:
“Beyond the Corporate: Public Sector Accounting in Accounting Education – Half of GDP, a footnote in the curriculum?”
When: Monday 7 December 2026, 11.00–12.30 CET (Brussels time), 10.00–11.30 UK time
Where: online
Register here
Governments in the European Union spend almost 50% of GDP (Eurostat, 2026). Yet a typical accounting graduate can apply IFRS 15 to a mobile phone contract and still be unable to read the financial statements of the government that taxes them, to judge the pension obligations of the state, or to explain why a government can report a balanced budget and an accrual-based deficit for the same year. Accounting curricula across Europe remain built around listed companies. Where public sector accounting appears at all, it tends to sit in electives or in public administration programmes (Adam et al., 2020; Karatzimas et al., 2022; Karatzimas et al., 2026).
This gap matters for the profession as a whole. Public sector accounting is accounting without a profit motive. Revenue arises largely from taxes and transfers rather than exchange transactions, budgets carry legal force, and cash, modified and accrual bases coexist in accounting, budgeting or both, sometimes within the same government. International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS), the long-debated European Public Sector Accounting Standards (EPSAS) and the first IPSASB Sustainability Reporting Standard on climate-related disclosures add further layers, as do sustainability-related budgeting practices. An accountant who has never encountered these features has learnt the profession through a single, rather narrow case.
The same gap affects citizens and politicians. Budgets and financial statements are the core accountability documents of democratic governments, yet many of those who vote on them, and most of those affected by them, struggle to read them (Jorge et al., 2019; Karatzimas, 2020; Cohen, 2022). Government accounting literacy is therefore part of democratic capacity, and accounting education has a duty in building it.
The panel in this webinar will address two questions. Why should every accounting graduate, and not only future civil servants, understand how governments account? And how can this be achieved in curricula that are already overloaded?
Building on recent studies (Adam et al., 2020; Karatzimas, 2020; Cohen, 2022; Cohen & Karatzimas, 2022; Karatzimas et al., 2022; Cohen et al., 2023; Cohen & Manes-Rossi, 2024; Baylis et al., 2024; Heiling & Karatzimas, 2025; Karatzimas et al., 2026), the first round discusses why public sector accounting should be integrated into accounting curricula and in which programmes it fits best, from undergraduate accounting degrees and accounting master’s programmes to MPA/MPM programmes and professional training. It also touches on the role of public sector accounting in citizens’ financial education.
The second round turns to implementation. It covers ways of embedding public sector accounting in existing courses or adding dedicated modules, the barriers involved, and the teaching resources needed to support its inclusion. Two current pressure points receive particular attention. Sustainability reporting raises the question whether its public sector dimension should be embedded in existing courses or taught as a field of its own (Heiling & Karatzimas, 2025), and generative AI acts as a facilitator and a risk factor at the same time (Cohen et al., 2023).
The panel takes the form of a round table with two rounds of questions, followed by an open discussion with participants. It will be of interest to accounting educators, programme directors, professional bodies and standard-setters. Moderator: Joan Ballantine, Chair, EAA Accounting Education Committee.
Panellists
Sandra Cohen, Professor of Accounting, Athens University of Economics and Business
Jens Heiling, Professor of Business Administration, in particular Financial and Management Accounting, Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW) Villingen-Schwenningen
Susana Jorge, Associate Professor of Accounting, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra
Sotirios Karatzimas, Associate Professor of Accounting, Athens University of Economics and Business
Panellists
Sandra Cohen is a Professor of Accounting in the Department of Business Administration at Athens University of Economics and Business. Her research interests lie in the fields of “Public Sector Accounting”, “Sustainability Reporting” and “Management Accounting”. Her research has been published in several ranked journals and presented at several international conferences. She is currently the Chair of the EAA Public Sector Accounting Committee and the Vice-Chair of the Comparative International Governmental Accounting Research (CIGAR) Network Executive Board.
Jens Heiling is Professor of Business Administration, in particular Financial and Management Accounting, at Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW) Villingen-Schwenningen, Germany. He brings more than 25 years of experience in public sector financial management. From 2011 to 2013 he was seconded to the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) in Toronto as Technical Manager for the project on first-time adoption of accrual basis IPSAS, and from 2013 to 2024 he coordinated EY’s global IPSAS and public sector accounting network. His research covers IPSAS and EPSAS, public sector sustainability reporting, the digital transformation of public sector reporting and comparative public sector accounting. He is a member of the working group on EPSAS/IPSAS of the Institute of Public Auditors in Germany (IDW) and of the CIGAR Network Executive Board.
Susana Jorge is Associate Professor with habilitation at the Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, Portugal, teaching and researching in Public Sector Accounting and Business Financial Accounting. She has co-chaired the Master’s Degree in Accounting and Finance since 2018. Former Chair of the Comparative International Governmental Accounting Research (CIGAR) Network, 2019-23; former member of the IPSASB Academic Advisory Group (2020-2025); current member of the Public Sector Accounting Committee of the European Accounting Association (EAA-PSAC). Her research interests relate to Public Sector Accounting and Financial Management, focusing especially on financial reporting and transparency, IPSAS, the use of accounting information by politicians, and the Local Government. She has authored several national and international presentations and publications in the field of public sector accounting and financial management.
Sotirios Karatzimas is an Associate Professor of Accounting at the Department of Accounting and Finance of the Athens University of Economics and Business. His research focuses on public sector accounting and management accounting. His work has been presented at various conferences and has been published in international leading journals, while he is regularly engaged in the implementation of various EU and national projects.
Relevant literature
Adam, B., Brusca, I., Caperchione, E., Heiling, J., Jorge, S. M. F., & Manes-Rossi, F. (2020). Are higher education institutions in Europe preparing students for IPSAS? International Journal of Public Sector Management, 33(2-3), 363-378. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-12-2018-0270
Baylis, R. M., Widt, D. D., Helikum, L. J., & Ashworth, R. (2024). Debate: The lack of public sector accounting education within universities and what is next. Public Money & Management, 44(5), 347-348. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2024.2333613
Cohen, S. (2022). Debate: Accounting training for politicians – an alternative approach. Public Money & Management, 42(8), 576-577. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2022.2107826
Cohen, S., & Karatzimas, S. (2022). New development: Public sector accounting education for users—embedding eLearning and technology in teaching. Public Money & Management, 42(4), 291-293. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2021.1986302
Cohen, S., Manes-Rossi, F., & Brusca, I. (2023). Debate: Public sector accounting education and artificial intelligence. Public Money & Management, 43(7), 725-726. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2023.2209290
Cohen, S., & Manes-Rossi, F. (2024). Debate: Can we tell accounting when we see it? Public Money & Management, 44(8), 655-656. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2024.2393937
Eurostat. (2026, April 22). Euro area government deficit at 2.9% and EU at 3.1% of GDP [News release] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-euro-indicators/w/2-22042026-ap
Heiling, J., & Karatzimas, S. (2025). Debate: Embedding or expanding? Rethinking sustainability in public sector accounting education. Public Money & Management, 45(7), 654-656. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2025.2535525
Jorge, S., Jesus, M. A. J. D., & Nogueira, S. P. (2019). The use of budgetary and financial information by politicians in parliament: A case study. Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, 31(4), 539-557. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBAFM-11-2018-0135
Karatzimas, S. (2020). The beneficial role of government accounting literacy in developing participatory citizens. Accounting Education, 29(3), 229-246. https://doi.org/10.1080/09639284.2020.1737547
Karatzimas, S., Heiling, J., Adam, B., Brunelli, S., Falivena, C., Jorge, S., Greiling, D., Dragija Kostić, M., & Narbón-Perpiñá, I. (2026). The coverage of public sector financial management in MPA and MPM programs: Evidence from Europe. International Journal of Public Sector Management, 39(3), 326-348. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-03-2024-0083
Karatzimas, S., Heiling, J., & Aggestam-Pontoppidan, C. (2022). Public sector accounting education: A structured literature review. Public Money & Management, 42(7), 543-550. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2022.2066356
