MPA Students and Clients Meet to Discuss Capstone Projects
Representatives from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Centre for Minority Issues, the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), Liberty’s Promise, PAX, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Budapest Institute met with MPA students on October 17-18 to discuss the students’ Applied Policy Projects (APP). The meetings were organized to give the student teams a chance to meet with their clients to discuss the structure and timeline of their projects that they need to complete before they graduate in June 2017. “These in-person meetings are invaluable and so we’re especially grateful to the client representatives who made time to travel to Budapest and meet with our students,” said Applied Policy Project Director Marko Godart Prelec.
Applied Policy Projects are student-run, team-based, year-long capstone projects that give second-year MPA students the chance to work with a real world client on a pressing public policy issue. It is a required component of the two-year MPA program. The projects vary enormously. The EBRD team, for example, is studying the role that civil society plays in promoting transition resilience in the countries where EBRD operates. The ICTJ team is researching the relationship between anti-corruption and transitional justice efforts in Guatemala and South Africa – both countries that are emerging from violent conflict or authoritarian rule. Other APP teams are working on migration, child care and protection in Latin America, and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals related to food.
Hanh Nguyen, a member of the EBRD team, said that the meeting with Cristina Buzasu was a great opportunity “to clarify questions that we had before and will enable us to better prepare for the tasks we have to complete.” The meetings were also a chance to discuss how to promote the APP in the EBRD newsletter and whether the team might be able to make a presentation at EBRD’s annual meeting in May 2017.
“It was fantastic,” commented second-year MPA student Liliana Fernandez about the ICTJ team’s meeting with Roger Duthie. She and her teammates were energized by their conversations and have a much clearer idea about what they will be doing. “This project will be a great opportunity for us to work with a well-known organization in the field of transitional justice,” she said.