Hertie School hosts its first Festival of Ideas

The event showcased the school’s Policy Lab, a space for tackling policy challenges supported by consulting firm PD.

On 6 June, the Hertie School hosted its first Festival of Ideas. The event launched the Hertie School Policy Lab, a solution space for policy challenges that brings together students, faculty and practice partners. Held in the Henrik Enderlein Forum at the Hertie School, the Festival of Ideas presented the aims and content of this year’s Policy Lab courses and celebrated the policy ideas presented as posters by Hertie School Master of Public Policy students. The Policy Lab is supported by public sector consulting firm PD – Berater der öffentlichen Hand, who also serves as a practice partner in the project.

Policy Lab strengthens collaboration with practice partners

Hertie School President Cornelia Woll opened the evening by highlighting the significance of the Policy Lab for the Hertie School. “The Policy Lab is part of the strategic development of the Hertie School,” she said. While the Hertie School had always been successful in teaching students about the fields they would be working in, the university also wanted to create a “one-stop shop” for exchange between practice partners, students and faculty. A series of discussions with PD led to the creation of just this, the Policy Lab.

Philipp Denker, member of the senior management team at PD, explained his company’s support of the initiative. “PD’s core belief”, Denker said, “is that public institutions need an update to achieve higher service orientation and also higher productivity in order to raise trust and competitiveness again in the West. This change requires new leaders in public administration with a new set of skills. The Policy Lab has very suitable concrete and case-based instruments to build up these skills.”

Project courses bring practice to the classroom

In a panel moderated by President Woll, the Policy Lab instructors discussed the hard work students did in their project courses to hone skills they would need in their respective fields. “We easily spent 50% in active working mode…designing key elements of multi-stakeholder partnerships in order to solve global public policy problems,” Adjunct Professor Monika Weber-Fahr said. The courses centred on real-world issues and how to create realistic solutions to them; students delved into lobbying in the EU, how to speak about sensitive topics in an international corporation, and how to involve different stakeholders to make canteens more sustainable, among others. They were guided in their work not only by Hertie School professors but also practice partners including the German development agency GIZ, food sustainability organisation Kantine Zukunft, and project supporter PD.

Jury and audience vote on best posters

Following the panel discussion, a jury comprising the project course instructors and practice partners chose the best poster from each project course, and audience members voted on their favourite posters.

Best posters chosen by the jury:

“Strategy Outline for the Adoption of Soil Use of Law” – Chiara Wehlte (Course: Influencing the EU: The Making of Climate Politics & Policies)
“Monitoring and Evaluation: For a Child's Brighter Future” – Yogada Joshi, Yheng (Joy) Li, Dora Ehrlich, Archita Menon, and Imtesal Hussain (Course: Monitoring & Evaluation of Social Programs)
“Addressing Integrity Issues by Applying AI Tools in the International Carbon Market” – Corbin Cerny and Hermia Chan (Course: Digital Development Cooperation)
“SUSTAINBITE – An Eco-conscious Canteen” – Sonakshi Saha and Amal Zahra (Course: Sustainability & Food: Theories, Concepts, Practices)
“Pro-social Platforms Alliance” – Stella Kunkat; “Conservation Alliance for Traditional Chinese Medicine (CATCM)” – Chenyu Liang (Course: The Fifth Force: Setting Strategy for Partnerships and Alliances)
“The NextGen Ministry. Empowering People & Shaping Tomorrow” – Frederike Westphalen, Jan Spanhofer, Johanna Guttenberger, Marcela Perez, and Philip von Born-Fallois (Course: Modern Government Design: Preparing for the Future of Government)

Best posters chosen by the audience: