Summer Faculty Workshop in Policy Research and Analysis

Today there is a growing demand for faculty and students with a diverse range of voices, perspectives and experiences who understand and can teach and use policy research and analysis. Recognizing this, the Pardee RAND Graduate School (PRGS) is issuing a special invitation to faculty at a select group of institutions to participate in a week-long Policy Analysis Workshop at RAND’s Santa Monica headquarters July 22-26, 2013.

This workshop is intended to provide participants a practical overview of policy research and analysis, an introduction to current RAND research, and an opportunity to engage with RAND researchers. While in Santa Monica, the participants will have 3-4 hours of instruction per day in the tools of policy research and analysis, will work through a policy analysis problem in a group setting, and will have ample opportunity to interact with RAND research staff, PRGS Ph.D. students, and other participating faculty through one-on-one meetings, meals, and other social activities.

The program will run from July 22-26, 2013 and will include:

• Workshops on the uses and techniques of policy analysis, research design, phases of policy making, statistical methods and organizational behavior
• Presentation of current RAND research across a wide range of policy issues including public health, defense and security, public safety, education, demographic analyses, environment, and regulatory policy
• Facilitated sessions with RAND researchers and participating faculty in shared research areas
• Individual meetings with RAND research staff

Tuition is $350 and we can accept up to 25 participants.

Full fellowships—covering tuition, airfare, hotel and other travel expenses—are available for up to 15 participants. We will accept up to 10 additional participants who pay for their own travel costs plus tuition.

Ideal applicants for the Summer Faculty Workshop will be able to demonstrate an ability to integrate what they will learn in their teaching, research and/or mentoring of students upon their return.

Application to the PRGS Summer Faculty Workshop in Policy Analysis will be competitive. Prospective attendees will submit an online questionnaire, their curriculum vitae, one letter of recommendation, and two brief essays. The deadline for submittal of all materials is Friday, March 1, 2013. Application decisions will be made by the first week in April and applicants will be promptly notified of their status.

The Pardee RAND Graduate School (PRGS), founded in 1970 as one of the country’s original eight graduate programs in public policy, educates and trains graduates who will shape public policy and lead public policy programs around the world. PRGS is unique in American higher education. It is the only program specializing in the Ph.D., and the only graduate program in public policy based at a research institute—the RAND Corporation—which invented many of the analytical tools of public policy analysis. The multidisciplinary curriculum emphasizes research methods drawn from mathematics, economics and the behavioral and social sciences. All students complete a core curriculum including courses in policy analysis, empirical and social science methods, microeconomics, macroeconomics, cost-benefit analysis and operations research. Most of the PRGS faculty members are also full-time policy analysts at RAND, and as such they bring the perspective of practitioners into the classroom. As of December 2012, PRGS has awarded 296 Ph.D. degrees in Policy Analysis and its graduates are making a difference in public policy around the globe.

Recognizing that not all those in need of training in policy analysis need or can afford to devote three to five years of study toward the Ph.D., PRGS offers short courses which can be tailored to the needs of academics and policy practitioners desirous of further training in their craft.

For more information about the Pardee RAND Graduate School, visit www.prgs.edu

The RAND Corporation is a non-profit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. Through rigorous, objective research and the development of sophisticated analytic tools, RAND sets the standard of quality in the field of policy analysis. At RAND, researchers from diverse disciplines and perspectives collaborate to find solutions to some of the most difficult and pressing challenges faced by the public and private sectors around the world.

For more information about RAND, visit www.rand.org