Policy Analysis for International Challenges

This course is about understanding and tackling international public policy challenges: the complex challenges that politicians, policy makers, analysts, engineers and other actors will face and have to deal with in the coming decades. We cover global trends related to for instance health, migration and refugees, the global energy transition, adaptation to climate change, cyber security and peace and justice, and others. We invite external clients to present their real-life challenges, and guide students in a step-by-step policy analysis process to analyse them and provide possible solutions.

Because the course is in the first quarter of the MSc Engineering and Policy Analysis, it forms the foundation of policy analysis and teaches students how to perform policy analyses for a variety of international public policy problems.

All other courses in the MSc build on the foundations laid in this course by giving them the specialist skills within these steps, but the foundations, basic skills, and required analytical mindset, are introduced here.

The course includes group assignments, an individual assignment and an individual take-home exam.

The group assignments and individual assignment are mainly about the tools and methods of policy analysis taught (LO2 and LO3).

The individual take home exam invites students to reflect on the context wherein these methods and tools are applied (LO1; LO4).

Weighting scales:

Group assignments: 40%

Individual assignment: 10%

Exam: 50%

Minimum grades for all assessments: 5

Note: There will be one possibility to retake the take-home exam in case of an unsatisfactory result