The Policy Lab

The Policy Lab The Policy Lab is an international policy design institute committed to helping organizations achieve better impact by design.

The Policy Lab is an independent research and advisory platform that collaborates with institutions to understand and assist them in designing responses when engaging complexity, context, and communities in moments of strategic choice. The Policy Lab is skilled at reducing barriers, creating conditions, and designing solutions for cooperative and effective action. The Policy Lab was founded in Bos

ton, Massachusetts, in January, 2011 as the successor to the Security Needs Assessment Protocol (SNAP) project of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) in Geneva (2006 - 2010). The SNAP project was an innovation initiative to explore the potential for "best process approaches" to the design of local action on security matters by UN operational agencies. SNAP's efforts led to agenda-setting work in the areas of cooperative ethics, applied cultural research on peace and security, situated theory for local action, best process approaches to program design, strategic design, and new approaches to cultural research in conflict zones. The Policy Lab maintains a Framework Agreement and research and development agenda with UNIDIR and cooperates with The Center for Local Strategies Research at the University of Washington. The Policy Lab advances the Agenda for Strategic Design and Public Policy established at the Glen Cove Conference, 2010 with a global consortium of academic, design, and policy partners.

12/30/2025

The Lab has a new website:

Thepolicylab.org

Join us.

12/24/2022

Happy holidays from everyone at The Policy Lab.

10/05/2022

The Policy Lab is partnered with the Somali Public Agenda in Mogadishu, working on bringing cultural research into the design of policies and programs on a range of issues, including transitional justice. On Monday (3 Oct, 2022), SPA's team was in Beledweyne. Shortly after starting their workshop two car bombs were detonated by al-Shabaad nearby. A third was set off a few hours later. Some 20 people died and 36 were injured.

We stand with our colleagues, and all others, who are trying to do their best in a world that seems to be doing its worst.

The Policy Lab is partnered with STORIES FOR SOCIETY's VOICES BETWEEN project:
12/17/2019

The Policy Lab is partnered with STORIES FOR SOCIETY's VOICES BETWEEN project:

HOME | VOICES BETWEEN – OUR MISSION

The Policy Lab is a partner to New Voices, a new initiative on countering violent extremism in the West. A new article:
11/02/2018

The Policy Lab is a partner to New Voices, a new initiative on countering violent extremism in the West. A new article:

When the stories we tell lean into the winds of modern crises, while also remaining rooted in meticulous research and documented history, we open new space for action and change.

09/25/2017

Follow The Policy Lab® on Twitter:

05/04/2017
03/17/2017

The absence of evidence of impact is not only a detriment to the optimization of programs for the public good; it can be used to defund and destroy these programs entirely. The careful design of projects and programs, supported by systems for active learning, monitoring and evaluation, can literally be the difference between the life and death of a program of action and … in some cases … those who rely on them.

01/29/2017

The Policy Lab® stands with Boston.

Read Part II of WHY POLICY DESIGN? AT http://policydesign.org/2014/05/06/why-policy-design-part-ii/
05/06/2014

Read Part II of WHY POLICY DESIGN? AT http://policydesign.org/2014/05/06/why-policy-design-part-ii/

Beyond DecisionmakingSimon gave rather wide berth to his term "decisionmaking" which he equated with "choice." He lays out his framework clearly: "At any moment there are a multitude of alternative...

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