The Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy is a vibrant
intellectual community of faculty, master's and Ph.D. students,
researchers, and administrative staff striving to improve public
policy and practice in the areas of health care, human services,
criminal justice, inequality, education, and labor. The work of
the Center draws on the worlds of scholarship, policy, and practice
to address pressing questions by:
- Carrying out research on important policy issues that affect
the lives of those who are most vulnerable and needy;
- Providing professional education for those in the world of
practice;
- Educating the next generation of academics and policy scholars;
- Ensuring that research and education are closely tied to and
draw from politics and practice in the field; and
- Developing working partnerships with the broader policy community.
Over the last decade and a half, the Wiener Center has been an
influential voice in domestic policy through faculty work on community
policing, welfare reform, youth violence, inner city poverty,
youth and the low-wage labor market, American Indian economic
and social development, and medical error rates. Our uniqueness
is that we have a group of serious scholars who not only produce
high-quality policy-oriented research but also understand the
political and management challenges of implementing their recommendations
because many have held important positions in public agencies
and because our faculty members involve practitioners in their
research in a serious way. This "practical experience"
influences the questions we choose to ask and increases our credibility
in teaching and policy recommendation.
Our research portfolio is both broad and deep, spanning many
academic disciplines, encompassing traditional research as well
as executive sessions, case-based research, and action research,
and employing a variety of research methodologies. It is inspired
by our focus on bettering the lives of our fellow citizens, particularly
those who are most vulnerable and needy.
The Wiener Center is home to two Ph.D. programs - The Joint Doctoral
Programs in Government, Sociology, and Social Policy and the Multidisciplinary
Program in Inequality and Social Policy. With the Harvard University
Native American Program, the Center's Harvard Project on American
Indian Economic Development also supports a Ph.D. program for
students working on American Indian issues. Joe Newhouse, a member
of the Center, chairs the University's Doctoral Program in Health
Policy.
