Why choose ISPP’s One year programme in Public Policy?

This foundational course explores public policy as both an academic discipline and a professional practice. Students learn why societies need policy, how it’s made and delivered, and what it takes to lead reform in real-world governance systems.

Structured into three parts—principles, process, and practice—the course blends conceptual frameworks with Indian case studies, drawing on works by Vijay Kelkar & Ajay Shah and Karthik Muralidharan. Students build core skills in:

• Analysing collective action problems
• Designing policy in complex, imperfect systems
• Reasoning clearly and acting adaptively
• Navigating institutions and ethical commitments

It’s the intellectual gateway to your journey as a public policy professional

This course explores how governments function, deliver public goods, and uphold societal well-being. Students examine the structures, staffing, and processes that enable governance, and learn how institutions address collective needs beyond individual interests.

Key learning outcomes include:

• Understanding the role and forms of government
• Exploring organizational structures and staffing
• Examining how governments discharge key functions
• Identifying key public institutions and leadership roles

This course explores how society (Samaaj), government (Sarkaar), and markets (Bazaar) interact to address development challenges. Students critically examine market failures and learn to redesign markets to better serve marginalised communities and regions.

Key themes include:

• Rethinking the role of markets in public service delivery
• The M4P framework: Markets for the Poor, Government, Natural Resources, Failures, and Undefendables
• Designing market-based solutions in non-traditional areas like organ transplants and poverty alleviation
• Challenging conventional assumptions to build empowering, inclusive markets

This course invites bold thinking and equips students to craft innovative, context-sensitive policy tools.

This course introduces students to India’s regulatory landscape, examining the legal frameworks, institutional powers, and governance mechanisms that shape public policy. Using tools from Law and Economics, students analyse how regulation works in practice—especially in the electricity sector and securities markets.

Key learning outcomes include:

• Understanding the rise and role of the regulatory state
• Mapping major regulatory agencies and their evolution post-1991
• Evaluating the powers, functions, and decision-making of regulators
• Assessing accountability mechanisms and transparency frameworks
• Comparing regulatory authority with legislative power and its impact on policy

This course explores how economics informs public policy—both in shaping societal behaviour and in allocating limited resources. Students learn to apply economic reasoning to real-world policy challenges, balancing trade-offs and prioritising objectives.

With a blend of theory and application, the course covers:

• Where economic thinking supports policy design
• Trade-offs, prioritisation, and unintended consequences
• System-wide outcomes and stakeholder interactions
• Dynamics between consumers, businesses, and government

Active classroom engagement is key to unlocking the full value of this course.

This course examines the strategic dynamics of human interaction, applying analytical tools to economic, political, legal, and social issues. Students explore key concepts like Nash equilibrium, backward induction, credible commitments, and games of incomplete information.

Topics include:

• Simultaneous and sequential games
• Repeated games and development applications
• Trade-offs between self-interest and collective outcomes
• Strategy design in auctions, pricing, bargaining, and political competition

Drawing on the work of Nobel Laureates, the course equips students to predict outcomes and craft optimal strategies in complex, real-world scenarios.

This course introduces the fundamentals of macroeconomics and public finance, focusing on how economic systems function and how policy instruments shape outcomes. Students explore fiscal and monetary policy, resource allocation, and the trade-offs involved in public decision-making.

Through Indian case studies, the course builds analytical skills to:

• Understand how public policy interacts with the economy
• Apply core macroeconomic and public finance concepts
• Critically assess real-world policy measures using economic frameworks

This course explores how human decisions are shaped by context, internal motivations, and mental models—often defying the assumptions of rationality in traditional economics. Students learn to identify systematic patterns in irrational behaviour, such as heuristics and biases, and apply these insights to design more effective interventions and policies.

Rooted in Behavioural Sciences, the course equips future policy professionals to tackle complex challenges where human behaviour is central to change.

This course explores the dynamic relationship between business and government, offering economic and political perspectives on issues like trade, environment, food security, and health. Students learn to align market and non-market strategies with public policy, and anticipate how government actions shape business outcomes.

Key topics include:

• Market failure and collective action
• Governance systems and regulatory dynamics
• Role of interest groups and public discourse
• Policy impacts on sectors like tariffs, bailouts, and education

The course equips students to navigate and influence policy in complex institutional environments.

This course examines the role of law in achieving social goals through the lens of economics. Students explore the normative foundations of legal and economic principles, and how law generates social value through market-driven transactions.

Topics include:

• Economic perspectives on Property, IP, Contract, and Tort Law
• The impact of legal compensations, punishments, and regulations
• The interplay between legal frameworks and economic outcomes

The course equips students to analyse laws as tools for shaping policy and advancing public interest.

This course builds conceptual clarity and practical skills in using statistical methods for public policy research. Students develop an intuitive grasp of econometric techniques and learn to apply them to real-world datasets.

Topics include:

• Sampling, estimation, and hypothesis testing
• Comparison of means for policy evaluation
• Linear regression and its limitations
• Advanced tools like categorical variables, panel data, and causality analysis

The focus is on hands-on data analysis and empirical applications drawn from the public policy domain.

This course introduces the full M&E planning cycle, equipping students to assess and improve policy implementation in complex development settings. Through case studies like Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and Bangladesh’s Urban Health Project, students learn to build robust frameworks using tools like Theory of Change, Logical Frameworks, SMART indicators, and India’s Output-Outcome Monitoring Framework (OOMF).

Key skills include:

• Designing and applying M&E frameworks
• Data analysis, visualisation, and quality assessment
• Evaluation methods: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed
• Sampling, survey design, and error identification

Hands-on exercises ensure students gain practical, actionable insights into M&E’s role in effective governance.

Design Thinking is a human-centred, problem-solving approach that goes beyond aesthetics to drive innovation in policy, services, brands, and business models. It helps uncover what people truly need and translate insights into impactful solutions.

This course introduces Design Thinking as a tool for empathy-driven, collaborative innovation—not just for designers, but for anyone tackling complex challenges. Students will:

• Explore key principles of user-led design
• Apply Design Thinking to a real-world public policy challenge

This course equips students to design and conduct evidence-based policy research, from framing questions to analysing data. Through hands-on exploration of research tools and methodologies, students learn to build a complete research framework.

Key outcomes include:

• Evaluating qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method approaches
• Developing research questions and proposals grounded in ethics and literature
• Applying data collection and analysis techniques using relevant tools

Ideal for scholars seeking to turn inquiry into actionable insight.

This course introduces Systems Thinking and System Dynamics modelling to analyse complex, real-world challenges. Students learn how feedback loops, time delays, and agent interactions shape development outcomes—and why technology alone often falls short.

Key concepts include:

• Interconnectedness and feedback dynamics in social systems
• Simulation modelling to test policy interventions
• Identifying leverage points through sensitivity analysis
• Using computer models to overcome bounded rationality and predict long-term system behaviour

The course equips students to design smarter, more sustainable solutions in complex policy environments.

The Antarang Leadership Lab (ALL) is an immersive, experiential space designed to nurture intimate and impactful leadership among ISPP scholars. Rooted in the spirit of Antarang—meaning “inner” or “intimate”—the lab fosters personal growth through hands-on learning and meaningful dialogue.

Workshops begin with self-awareness and expand into themes like:

• Networking and cultural fluency
• Teamwork and effective communication
• Resilience, success, and leadership presence

The journey culminates in a three-day retreat in the hills, offering space for reflection and renewal.

Scholars are grouped into small, informal squads led by a Squad Facilitator, encouraging close academic and personal exchange. Each scholar is also paired with a mentor—a senior professional who serves as a sounding board for personal and career development throughout the year.

Together, these elements prepare scholars to lead with clarity, empathy, and confidence—at ISPP and beyond.

This hands-on course places the citizen at the heart of policy, bridging theory with grounded action. Students explore how governance unfolds through laws, norms, culture, and infrastructure, and learn to design context-sensitive, actionable policy solutions.

Key elements include:

• Curated readings, guest talks, and an 8-week field project
• Design-thinking and ethnographic methods
• Stakeholder-informed interventions for local spaces
• Visual and oral communication of policy ideas

The lab equips students to navigate and shape real-world policy with empathy and insight.

The Writing and Communication Lab sharpens scholars’ ability to engage policy stakeholders with clarity and impact. Through apprentice-style training, it builds verbal, non-verbal, and written communication skills tailored for development, corporate, and academic settings.

The lab offers:

• Public policy, academic, and business communication modules
• Regular lectures and personalised one-on-one coaching
• Collaboration with the Careers team for professional readiness

Scholars learn to craft compelling messages, translate research for diverse audiences, and communicate with confidence across platforms.

The Professional Development Lab (PDL) bridges the gap between classroom learning and real-world policy practice. Over a seven-month journey, scholars gain:

• Sector insights across think tanks, government, consulting, CSR, and development
• Hands-on skills in project management, policy analysis, and stakeholder communication
• Career readiness through resume workshops, mock interviews, and communication coaching
• Mentorship and curated networking to build confidence and clarity in career pathways

PDL equips scholars with the skills, mindset, and networks to thrive in diverse public policy roles.