This course focuses on science and technology policy—it will examine the science and technology innovation system, including case studies on energy, computing, advanced manufacturing, and health sectors, with an emphasis on public policy and the federal government's role in that system.

As an introduction to the field of Housing, Community, and Economic Development (HCED), the course is structured to:

Advance student's understanding of how public policy and private markets affect housing, economic development, the local economy, and neighborhood institutions;

Provide an overview of techniques for framing public and private interventions to meet housing and community development agendas, broadly defined, of inner city and low income neighborhoods;

Review and critique specific programs, policies and strategies that are (and have been) directed at local development and neighborhood regeneration issues;

Give students an opportunity to reflect on their personal sense of the "housing, community, and economic development" process and the various roles that planners play in implementing the elements of that agenda.

This course provides students with a critical introduction to: social and economic inequality in America; equitable development as a response framework for planners; social capital and community building as planning concepts; and the history, development, and current prospects of the fields of housing (with an emphasis on affordability and inclusion) and local economic development.

This course explores perspectives in the policy process - agenda setting, problem definition, framing the terms of debate, formulation and analysis of options, implementation and evaluation of policy outcomes using frameworks including economics and markets, law, and business and management. Methods include cost/benefit analysis, probabilistic risk assessment, and system dynamics. Exercises include developing skills to work on the interface between technology and societal issues; simulation exercises; case studies; and group projects that illustrate issues involving multiple stakeholders with different value structures, high levels of uncertainty, multiple levels of complexity; and value trade-offs that are characteristic of engineering systems. Emphasis on negotiation, team building and group dynamics, and management of multiple actors and leadership.

Curriculum unit on the historical  context of Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle and how the book helped reform efforts in Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906.

This course is an introduction to labor economics with an emphasis on applied microeconomic theory and empirical analysis. We are especially interested in the link between research and public policy. Topics to be covered include: labor supply and demand, taxes and transfers, minimum wages, immigration, human capital, education production, inequality, discrimination, unions and strikes, and unemployment.

This course studies the interaction between law, courts, and social movements in shaping domestic and global public policy. Examines how groups mobilize to use law to affect change and why they succeed and fail. The class uses case studies to explore the interplay between law, social movements, and public policy in current areas such as gender, race, labor, trade, environment, and human rights. Finally, it introduces the theories of public policy, social movements, law and society, and transnational studies.

This lesson engages students in the debate over the Social Security Act that engrossed the nation during the 1930s.

This lesson shows students how broadly the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941 empowered the federal government"”particularly the President"”and asks students to investigate how FDR promoted the program in speeches and then in photographs.

The Lifestyle Project is a way for students to learn about environmental alternatives by modifying their own lifestyles. It is a three-week exercise for students to reduce their impact on the environment by changing the way in which they live from day to day. The project has fairly rigid parameters, allowing students to achieve a gradual but definitive change in their everyday habits. Students choose three categories from a list of six: heat, garbage, electricity and water, driving, eating, and activism. For each category the rules are clearly defined, such as turning down the heat three degrees or eliminating the use of the car. Each week the project becomes more rigorous, because students will have to meet the requirements more frequently. They write about their experiences in journals, which are incredibly insightful, illustrating just how profoundly the project affects them.

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This course aims to get students thinking about politics and policy as a part of their everyday life. We treat politics as a struggle among competing advocates trying to persuade others to see the world as they do, working within a context that is structured primarily by institutions and cultural ideas. We’ll begin by developing a policymaking framework, understanding ideology, and taking a whirlwind tour of the American political system. Then, we’ll examine six policy issues in depth: health care, gun control, the federal budget, immigration reform, same-sex marriage, and energy and climate change.

This course provides an introduction to public policy analysis. It is designed for students who may be planning a career in public or non-profit sectors. The primary goal is to help students understand the implications of public policy for different pursuits. The class examines various approaches to policy analysis by considering the concepts, tools, and methods used in economics, political science, and other disciplines. Students apply and critique these approaches through case studies of current public policy problems.

This course applies microeconomic theory to analysis of public policy. It builds from the microeconomic model of consumer behavior and extends to operation of single and multiple markets and analysis of why markets sometimes fail. We will study empirical examples to evaluate theory, focusing on the casual effects of policy interventions on economic outcomes. Topics include minimum wages and employment, food stamps and consumer welfare, economics of risk and safety regulation, the value of education, and gains from international trade.
MITx Online Version
This course is part of the Micromaster’s Program in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy through MITx Online. The course is entirely free to audit, though learners have the option to pay a fee, which is based on the learner’s ability to pay, to take the proctored exam, and earn a course certificate. To access the course, create an MITx Online account and enroll in the course 14.003x Microeconomic Theory and Public Policy.

At the end of a six-week class or unit on global warming, students role-play representatives from various countries and organizations at an international summit on global warming.

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IDS.410J Modeling and Assessment for Policy explores how scientific information and quantitative models can be used to inform policy decision-making. Students will develop an understanding of quantitative modeling techniques and their role in the policy process through case studies and interactive activities. The course addresses issues such as analysis of scientific assessment processes, uses of integrated assessment models, public perception of quantitative information, methods for dealing with uncertainties, and design choices in building policy-relevant models. Examples used in this class focus on models and information used in earth system governance.

Conventional legislative, administrative, and judicial means of resolving resource allocation and policy disputes in the public sector often produce less than satisfactory results. This is true in democracies around the world. Planners, policy-makers, developers, and advocates of the poor who are concerned about the fairness, efficiency, stability, and wisdom of public sector decision-making are searching for better ways of resolving public policy disagreements. Recent advances in the theory and practice of multi-party negotiation and dispute resolution are, therefore, of great interest. 
This seminar is designed for graduate students with no prior background or experience in the fields of  negotiation or dispute resolution. Lectures, scenarios, case studies, video analysis, and role-play simulations are used to introduce students to the "art" and "science" of negotiation and consensus building. The class also provides an intensive opportunity for each student to build their personal theory of practice and to strengthen their negotiating capabilities.

This course was designed to educate students about how nuclear weapons came into being, the physics of these weapons, how they are structured, how they have evolved over the past several decades, efforts to control them and limit the threats that they represent, and what the possibilities for the future are. Many people in our country and other countries are not aware of what an existential threat nuclear weapons represent, and this lack of awareness is an important part of the overall threat. 
The course was taught by an MIT Iterdisciplinary team coordinated by Robert P. Redwine, Professor of Physics Emeritus.  The full list of instructors is listed on the course page.

Many of us have likely heard the expression “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Yet, it is the people who are often excluded from the public policy process. Citizen engagement is typically reactive rather than proactive and passive as opposed to active. Voting and protesting are not the only ways that governments hear the voices of the people. Voting allows citizens to choose individuals who represent their interests, yet their interests are not always represented in ways they desire. Protesting brings attention to issues but doesn’t always lead to problems being solved. This book aims to empower readers to be active participants in the policy process rather than centering elected officials, appointed officials or bureaucrats as the only sources of policy power. This book is written in the spirit of equity. In order to have equitable public policies the voices of those who are impacted by these policies need to be heard as “gaps exist between the services governments deliver and what citizens want or need” (Mintrom & Luetjens, 2018, pg. 122). This is not simply a matter of contributing to policy discourse, but perhaps more importantly, a matter of contributing to the design, development and evaluation of public policy. Further, it is about holding policy makers and other decision makers accountable for their actions and the results of the actions. This book draws from lessons learned from my practical experiences, teaching and research. It is my hope that it equips those on the front lines of public policy and social equity with the tools needed to be effective producers and consumers of public policy ideas.

This course introduces students to the techniques of participatory action research (PAR) and the practice of case study research. PAR processes are place or case-specific, place a premium on local ways of knowing, and gauge the success of research in terms of what partner-communities do with the knowledge that is co-produced. The objective of PAR is to generate the ideas, information, and understandings that ought to inform efforts to promote social change. By focusing on ways of co-producing knowledge using various forms of data collection and analysis, students will learn how the people and communities who are often university partners in applied social science research can use findings or results from PAR case studies to address the challenges they confront in their communities.
Learn more about Participatory Action Research at MIT.

Relatório técnico conclusivo, no qual - por meio de indicadores deduzidos obtidos na realização de estudo prévio de avaliação, durante pesquisa de doutorado, e vinculado à melhoria contínua de seus resultados - é apresentado programa de ações que dá suporte à gestão integrada de resíduos sólidos e com vistas à melhoria da cooperação intersetorial e engajamento das partes interessadas envolvidas. A iniciativa provém do Programa Regional de Pós-Graduação em Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente (Rede PRODEMA), proposta interdisciplinar, interinstitucional e intrarregional, da qual participam nove instituições de ensino superior, que trabalham para propor resolução de problemas locais e regionais. Se aplicado, pode gerar mudanças efetivas na área ambiental, social, econômica, cultural e jurídica, colaborando com governos locais municipais e sua relação com os cidadãos. Vale destacar ainda que este produto atende a seis objetivos de desenvolvimento sustentável, da ONU, especificamente o ODS 1 – Erradicação da pobreza, ODS 3 – Saúde e bem-estar, ODS 6 – Água potável e saneamento, ODS 10 – Redução das desigualdades, ODS 12 – Consumo e produção responsáveis e o ODS 17 – Parcerias e meios de implementação.