Harris Policy Labs are Harris elective courses in which small teams of second-year (or second-third quarter MA) Harris students apply their rigorous Core education and policy skills to real-time public policy challenges facing client organizations. Policy Labs students work under faculty guidance and earn course credit.

Policy Labs students work under faculty guidance and earn course credit. Students who complete Harris Policy Labs courses have the chance to make an impact in their policy area of interest before graduation and enhance other important professional skills (such as teamwork, client interaction, communication skills, etc.), often making them better-prepared policy professionals with a competitive advantage in the job market. In this post, we round up some resources to learn more about the opportunities available to students through Policy Labs.

Watch this video to hear from students and alumni about their unique opportunities with Harris Policy Labs.

Some of the organizations our Policy Labs students have worked with include:

• Asian Development Bank
• California Air Resources Board
• California Department of Social Services
• Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning
• Chicago Urban League
• Chicago Community Trust
• City of Chicago (including Department of Transportation and Department of Family & Support Services)
• City of Gary, Indiana
• Colorado Public Utilities Commission
• Cook County Department of Environment & Sustainability
• Illinois Commerce Commission
• Illinois Department of Employment Security
• Illinois Department of Financial & Professional Regulation
• Illinois Medical District
• International Alert
• Mercy Corps
• Metropolitan Planning Council
• Michigan Department of Health & Human Services
• Millennium Challenge Corporation
• Oxfam
• United Nations Development Program
• United States Conference of Mayors
• University of Chicago Medicine
• World Bank

Harris Policy Labs: Nearly a Decade of Driving Local, State, National, and International Change

Harris Policy Labs continues to enhance students’ policy skills and policy experience while providing value to external client organizations on key policy issues. In Spring Quarter 2023 alone, Policy Labs students tackled nine different policy projects for NGOs and government agencies, including a project for the Chicago Community Trust, one of Chicago’s largest philanthropies, to address systemic inequities in the home appraisal process, and a project to help the Illinois Department of Employment Security identify barriers that unemployed individuals face when applying for unemployment benefits.

Read the article: “Harris Policy Labs: Nearly a Decade of Driving Local, State, National, and International Change.”

Part of the Solution: Harris Policy Labs Students Propose Social Vulnerability Index to Better Prioritize Communities Facing Urban Flood Risks

With a renewed focus on ensuring the equitable distribution of government funding across communities in the Chicago metropolitan region, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning enlisted Policy Labs students to come up with new approaches for prioritizing the allocation of water infrastructure grants to under-resourced communities most vulnerable to flooding.

Read the article: "Part of the Solution: Harris Policy Labs Students Propose Social Vulnerability Index to Better Prioritize Communities Facing Urban Flood Risks." 

Finding Common Purpose with the Harris Common Read: A Harris Policy Lab Investigates Lead Service Lines

Over three consecutive quarters of Harris Policy Labs in 2021–22, different teams of Harris Policy Labs students assist state government agencies in three of the nation’s ten largest states and UChicago Med with projects aimed at increasing institutional capacity to deliver needed services and supports to the unemployed, low-resource families, and other underserved populations.

Read the article: "Finding Common Purpose with the Harris Common Read: A Harris Policy Lab Investigates Lead Service Lines.” 

Harris at Home: Bridge Between Theory and Practice, Harris Policy Labs Provide Valuable Remote Experiences

“There is no such thing as ‘perfect’ in the real world and we want our students prepared for that,’’ says Carol Brown, Executive Director of Harris Policy Labs. This article provides several examples of the ambiguities, imperfect data, and other complexities Policy Labs students encountered in projects for Mercy Corps and + Peace, two global nonprofit organizations.

Read the article: "Harris at Home: Bridge Between Theory and Practice, Harris Policy Labs Provide Valuable Remote Experiences"

Learning by Doing Through Harris Policy Labs

Harris alumni had the opportunity to work with Oxfam America to improve workers’ rights and the Metropolitan Planning Council to improve the Chicago Rivers System as part of their Policy Labs experience.

Read the article: "Learning by Doing Through Harris Policy Labs"

Poised for Growth: Harris Policy Labs students help uncover opportunities for investment on Chicago’s West Side

This article shows how Policy Labs students worked with Illinois Medical District’s Opportunity Zones Project to find opportunities for investment on Chicago’s West Side. “Learning how to look for information and how to work with the data you get — because it’s never going to tell you everything you want to know — is key to Policy Labs projects”, says the Policy Labs' Academic Director Paula Worthington.

Read the article: "Poised for Growth: Harris Policy Labs students help uncover opportunities for investment on Chicago’s West Side"