Driving change through the 2024 IIPP MOIN student placement programme
By Nora Clinton, Head of the Mission-Oriented Innovation Network (MOIN), Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)
At IIPP’s 2024 Rethinking the State Forum in June, many of our external guests from policy and academia commented on the dynamism of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose and its deep commitment to putting public value, how it is imagined and practiced, at the center of government and democratic discourse.
This dynamism emanates naturally from our highly committed researchers and academics; but increasingly it is IIPP students in our Masters in Public Administration (MPA) in Innovation, Public Policy and Public Value who are outstanding in their work.
As the Head of the Mission-Oriented Innovation Network (MOIN) at IIPP, a network of over 100 global public sector organisations who want to learn more about IIPP’s approaches, I have the privilege of collaborating with the IIPP MPA student body each year on the MOIN IIPP Student placement programme
What is the IIPP MOIN Student placement programme?
In brief, the placement programme is where real-world policy challenges meet with IIPP student teams over a period of eight weeks each spring. Host organisations put forward challenges they face when driving public sector programmes; wanting to benefit from IIPP’s unique thinking in live contexts. Students choose their preferred challenge based on personal interest and are grouped in student teams of three or four. They then work in a hybrid manner, collaboratively with their hosts and IIPP supervisors, bringing IIPP thinking and approaches to the challenge at hand. Through desktop research, literature reviews, workshops and internal and external interviews the students explore and refine the research question as well as develop and test potential solutions in collaboration with host organisations and faculty.
The eight-week placement culminates with a 30-minute graded presentation, in which students describe their research findings and propose recommendations for their hosts to tackle the challenge at hand.
What are the benefits of the programme?
The student placement programme is testament to IIPP’s commitment to Practice- based Theorising i.e., a novel model which continues to be developed at IIPP, understanding how academic institutions and researchers produce knowledge and insights that can most effectively support policymakers and decision-makers.
It proves to be a very formative learning experience for students as they benefit from the exposure to the complexity of on the ground implementation of core taught concepts while hosts describe benefiting from ‘fresh perspectives’ on organisational challenges.
What challenges did IIPP students work on in 2024?
Twenty-four real world challenges were received by IIPP from MOIN organisations in 2024; ten challenges were selected by students and ten student teams were seeded with the following policy organisations:
- the Food and Agriculture Organisation
- the Design Council
- the European Investment Bank
- Challenge Works, Nesta
- The Greater London Authority
- Climate-KIC
- The Centre Digital and Data Office
- Hackney Council
- Innovate UK and
- Sussex Bay
The challenges in question touched on core IIPP themes such as:
- effective policy making in complex systems
- policy coherence across government silos
- organisational design and institutional collaboration in government
- 21st century capabilities in government for example sense-making
- new approaches to policy evaluation as a learning process
- designing mission-oriented public institutions
- new governance structures and
- effective stakeholder engagement
How did the 2024 programme go?
Having had the privilege of seeing this programme run for four years now, I can say that the quality of engagement and output on this programme goes from strength to strength. A rigorous feedback process is underway and at the time of writing eight of our ten hosts have submitted their feedback explaining how impressed they were with the students’ work and confirming that they would like to collaborate with IIPP students again in the future.
Some testimonials from host organisations can be seen below as well as a snapshot of the students’ outputs:
Host Testimonials
It was a real pleasure hosting the IIPP students and their work has added considerably to our understanding of a complex and nebulous topic. Their unique perspectives challenged conventional views in a constructive way that has presented a number of new opportunities we are now poised to act on. I would highly recommend hosting a student placement to any prospective hosts and would happily welcome another team of students back to Innovate UK again. Innovate UK, 2024
We had the pleasure of hosting a group of outstanding students for a two-month placement at our organization, focusing on the issue of policy coherence. Throughout their time with us, the students demonstrated a profound understanding of the complexities involved in aligning diverse policy areas. Their work, which included extensive research and direct engagement with policymakers, provided invaluable insights into both the strengths and weaknesses of existing tools for improving policy coherence. The students presented their findings with great professionalism, engaging the audience through their ability to communicate complex ideas in an appealing and accessible manner. We are grateful for their hard work and dedication, and we look forward to seeing their continued success in the field of public policy.
FAO (Rome) 2024
The IIPP student team supercharged the development of the Design Council’s mission to upskill 1 million designers for the Green Transition by 2030. They were a dedicated, intelligent and creative team and their work helped us explore the opportunity from new perspectives and sharpen our analysis of the policy changes needed. They bought a much needed independent and critical eye to our work, strengthening what we will do next.
The Design Council UK, 2024
We are very grateful to have such strong policy partners on this programme and are committed to building on the programme’s success; continually optimising the experience for both our students and hosts.
All that is left to say is a massive thank-you to our amazing 2024 IIPP students for all their hard work and commitment; you are bright shining lights in a sea of change!
For enquiries related to the Mission-Oriented Innovation Network and/or its intersection with IIPP’s student placement programme, please reach out to MOIN’s manager, Nora Clinton at n.clinton@ucl.ac.uk
