Higher programs aim at the promotion and development of top administrative leaderships for government agencies.  Participants include deputy ministers, assistant deputy ministers, directors general, and officials of equivalent ranks, as well as top private sector leaderships.  The programs consist of applied seminars, symposia, and various scholarly meetings.  Participants get to know the new developments and trends in the field of public administration, discuss administrative problems that they face, and search for solutions.  They also have the chance to exchange views and suggestions about new public administration trends.

1.1. Applied Seminars

The IPA conducts four types of applied seminars: general, directed, international, and special to one particular government agency.  In addition there are round table meetings.  The duration of each seminar is one to three days.

1.2. Scholarly Symposia and Meetings

In collaboration with the Ford Foundation, the IPA sponsored its first scholarly meeting on 20.4.1973, and it was a five-day event.  The first IPA symposium was held on 15.2.1973, under the title "Job Classification in the Kingdom."

In the training year 1975-76, the Second Computer Conference was held, with the participation of 204 specialists.  The number of participants continued to be on the ebb and flow until the year 1978-79, when four symposia were held, with 260 participants.

The IPA headquarters in Riyadh housed all meetings and symposia until 1978-79, which witnessed a new radical turn, as such activities set out to deal with problems on site.  Two symposia were held, one in Hail and the other in Abha.  The trend continued, and in 1993-94, a symposium was held in Tabuk.  Another major development took place in the following training year, with the symposium/meeting activities getting across the borders of Saudi Arabia; a symposium on "The Role of Training in Administrative Development" was held in Qatar.  Other symposia and meetings followed, with the number of annual events rising to six per year.  The total number of participants in all IPA symposia and meetings until the end of 2008-2010 in the headquarters, the branches, and other cities and countries, is 34,516.