The Policy Analysis Project/Exercise (PAE) is the capstone module of our two-year MPP program. It aims to provide students with a valuable, engaging, educational and professional experience.
It is an eight-month long project in which the second-year students work in teams of five to six students, under the supervision of a faculty member. The project is designed to address challenges, issues, and problems facing real-world organizations. It is indeed a client-based project. By engaging in this project, students will have the opportunity to apply theoretical concepts and practical skills acquired from the MPP program to analyze policy issues, develop solutions, and produce professional reports for client organizations. This project is a challenging and intellectually stimulating exercise that will enable students to make a contribution to the field of public policy.
Theme For PAE 2023/24
To help students frame and conceptualize their PAE projects, this year’s PAE will have an overarching theme of "Embracing Technological Changes for a Sustainable Future".
Students are encouraged to explore various industries, institutions, and policies in their PAE projects and to adopt a critical lens when analyzing problems, developing options, and assessing possible solutions. This approach will help students facilitate a more nuanced understanding of the issues at hand and enable students to create innovative solutions that are responsive to the needs of stakeholders. By adopting this approach, students are expected to equip with the knowledge and skills necessary to navigate the complexities of policymaking in the midst of a global crisis.
Event poster (2022-23): here
About PAE Client
The ideal PAE client is one whose actions and decisions have a real impact on public policy, who understands the purpose of the PAE, and who is willing to provide mentorship, advice, other forms of assistance (e.g. time, access to people, information) for the project. It is also important that the client has a reasonably clear understanding of what he or she wants. On the other hand, what the PAE teams bring to the clients is independence. The estimated time involvement PAE team would ask of the client is 6 – 8 hours over 8 months of the PAE.
For details of PAE, please right click here.
If you would like to be our PAE client, please email us via ppolmpp@ust.hk your proposed topic(s) and/or provide a contact point in your organisation.
There was a good mix of clients from the public and also private sectors, including Arthur D. Little, Centennial Asia Advisors, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Netherlands Innovation Network, Paypal, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Research For Social Advancement Berhad (REFSA), RAND Corporation, The Center for Green Finance Research (CGFR) of Tsinghua University.