Imagine it is the year 2030 and climate change has reached a tipping point. Scientists predict that within the next year irreversible flood damage will plunge your country into a devastating health and security crisis that demands a plan of action. If you were a policy advisor for the Ministry of Energy, the mayor of an at-risk city, or the head of a private firm that will lose 70% of its coastal manufacturing plants due to rising sea levels, how would you plan to tackle this challenge? What skills and frameworks would you need to begin planning and implementing a comprehensive response to a complex public policy problem?
Dealing with the impacts of climate change is just one example of a challenging public policy problem HKS students may face in their careers. Policy Design and Delivery (PDD) will teach you the skills necessary to address a wide range of issues and to craft options for change. The PDD course is grounded in theory, but taught using an immersive case-based methodology. Students will learn to use and apply policy tools and frameworks to hypothetical cases where no current answer exists and see how real-world examples were solved, taught by leading experts with personal experience. Throughout the course, students will build upon their policy-making toolkit to develop skills in leadership, team-building, briefing and writing for policymakers, and effective project management.
This course is required for MPP1 students and not open to non-MPP1 students.