+Policy Homepage
+Policy Fellow Research Highlight: Suqin Ge
+Policy Network
ANNOUNCEMENTS & UPCOMING EVENTS
The +Policy Network is pleased to congratulate and welcome two new faculty members as AY 2024-25 +Policy Fellows!
Andrew Katz
Assistant Professor of Engineering Education, will work with Aditya Johri, Professor, Department of Information Sciences and Technology at George Mason University, on Structures and Machines: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Mapping the Policy Implications of Generative AI in Higher Education. The project, which will collect preliminary data for a later extramural proposal, aims to chart and analyze existing policies related to AI in higher education across the U.S., while identifying gaps and considerations for future policymaking in this rapidly evolving arena.
Yang Zhang
Associate Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning in the School for Public and International Affairs, will collaborate with Jennifer Irish, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, to conduct an interdisciplinary pilot project for an eventual study to improve local flood policymaking. The long-term goal of the collaboration, Increase Accessibility and Usability of Flood Hazard Models and Maps for Local Flood Hazard Policies through Knowledge Co-production, is to design pathways for producing flood hazard models and maps that are not only engineeringly sound but also readily accessible and usable to communities, especially low-capacity communities.
What is the +Policy Network?
The +Policy Network, formerly the Policy Destination Area, is a cross-university, interdisciplinary group that aims to raise the visibility of policy and policy-related research and practice across the University. We are dedicated to making research more "translation-ready" by helping faculty and graduate students consider policy considerations even at the start of the research enterprise (hence, the "+ Policy"). Since fall 2021, we are funded by and operate under the auspices of the Institute of Society, Culture and Environment (ISCE).
Building capacity for policy research and development that connects STEM disciplines with the social sciences and humanities sets us apart from the "policy school" approach by leveraging our strengths in policy-related theoretical and methodological innovation and sophistication and the deliberate integration of policy considerations throughout the university, so as to advance the human condition in a just and equitable manner.
We view policy broadly as making decisions with wide-ranging or heightened impact under conditions of complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty. Under such frequently volatile and poorly understood circumstances, “policy” encompasses more than statutes, regulations, and court decisions, often producing outcomes with major social, economic, and environmental ramifications.
We work toward achieving our aims through several interlocked strategies and that also reflect the mission of our land grant University. These include concentration of focal areas that are in turn reflected in our research, graduate certificate program, or curriculum, and engagement. Specific initiatives or programs are listed below.
Focal Areas
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Energy & Environmental PolicyPolicies debated and made now affect generations to come. Perhaps in few areas is this more true than for energy and environmental policies - which are national, but also international, state and local - making them especially complex.
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Health PolicyWe view health policy as an ever-evolving, interdisciplinary field that traverses many disciplines including those traditionally within public health and medicine, as well as across liberal arts, architecture and planning, engineering, and others.
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Technology PolicyWe are poised to enter perhaps the most consequential decade in the history of humankind. The potential of innovative technologies for good or ill, unfolding within an acceleratingly interconnected yet diverging world that is undergoing dramatic climate and social changes, means that governance and policy decisions made today have outsized ramifications across every sphere of future human activity.