The history of the institute, at that time "Institut for Business Administration of Public Enterprises (IBGU)", begins 1971 with its establishment by o.Univ.Prof. Dr. Theo Thiemeyer. In 1979 it was taken over by o.Univ.-Prof. Dkfm. Dr. Reinbert Schauer, who, as one of the pioneers of public and nonprofit management, repeatedly influenced the development of this relatively young discipline.

Prof. Schauer set trend-setting milestones in the reform of public budgeting and accounting from a pure financial accounting to a more comprehensive accounting, steering and management tool, but also in the accounting and controlling of nonprofit organizations.

This is still evident today through sustained international collaborations, including with the VMI of the University of Fribourg/Switzerland, where Prof. Schauer was then and still is involved in the area of the Fribourg Management Model for NPOs (FMM). In addition, there is still a partnership agreement in the Erasmus program for the exchange of students in teaching.

An example of all other activities is the International Colloquium of NPO Researchers, which has taken place every two years since 1994 alternating between Linz, Göttingen (formerly Munich) and Fribourg, and which enables not only  established researchers, but also young researchers and interested practitioners to exchange knowledge and network.

With his retirement in September 2012, Prof. Schauer handed over the institute and its management to Univ.-Prof. Dr. Dennis Hilgers. At the same time, the institute was renamed to the current Institute of Public and Nonprofit Management (PNP).

The aim of teaching is to train qualified economists who can meet the requirements of practice and to train students who want to work at the interfaces to the public sector.

In research, the PNP aims to contribute to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of public and nonprofit management through fundamental, but also innovative and practice-oriented research projects. A special concern is therefore the transfer of university knowledge into practice. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Dennis Hilgers maintains a regular and direct dialogue with the public administration, not least in the context of numerous conferences and lectures. One example is the Verwaltungsmanagement-Tag (Administrative Management Day).