Practical Training

Project group (3rd semester)

During the third semester, all MPP students participate in a project group. Under the supervision of an academic staff member, a group of around ten students completes an assignment by an external partner ("client") on a real public policy problem or question. The objective of the project groups is that students can put their acquired knowledge into practice. Students work on a specific project task to gain experience in project planning and management and in organizing effective teamwork. The projects can range from drafting business cases for new policy initiatives to writing background reports on an important policy issue, or crafting scenarios for future or hard-to-measure policy options. The project group is worth 9 credit points (ECTS) – i.e., a workload of approximately 270 hours over the course of six months (October to March).

Throughout the project students engage with the external ‘clients’ in an entrepreneurial and professional way. The clients help defining the final deliverable of the project and the students plan the implementation. Occasional meetings between students and clients might take place to define the main motivation, score, terms of reference, and milestones of the project. The clients usually host the student group for a physical presentation of the final project at the host institution (capacity constraints and the pandemic situation permitting). Past clients include development agencies such as the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), climate consultancies such as adelphi, nonpartisan and charitable organizations such as the Aspen Institute, or philanthropies such as the Open Society Foundations.