APS holds International Summer Training Camp for Public Policy Scholars 2022
Group photo of participants and speakers at the opening session of the summer training camp.
Professor Caner Bakir (top left) from Koc University and Dr Alex He Jingwei from APS (bottom left) alongside other panelists at the Editors’ Roundtable of the summer training camp.
Professor Michael Howlett from Simon Fraser University gives a talk on “Analyzing and Designing Policy Mixes: Notes on Effectiveness in Complex Policy Tool Portfolios”.
The Department of Asian and Policy Studies (APS) organised the “International Summer Training Camp for Public Policy Scholars 2022: Theory, Methods & Career Development” between 4 and 8 July. The online training programme was held to empower public policy scholars with the skillset and opportunities they need to carry out research projects.
A total of 47 doctorate and master’s students, postdoctoral fellow and early career researchers and scholars joined the summer camp from India, Germany, Pakistan, Indonesia, mainland China, Turkey, Singapore, Kenya, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the US, Thailand, Japan and the UK.
A number of prominent scholars from Australia, mainland China, Canada, Hong Kong, India, the Netherlands, Singapore, the World Bank, Turkey and the US were invited to share knowledge and research skills with the summer camp attendees. The teaching roster included Professor Michael Howlett, Burnaby Mountain Professor and Canada Research Chair of the Department of Political Science at Simon Fraser University, and Professor Caner Bakir, Professor of Political Science at Koc University and Visiting Fellow of the Hoover Institute at Stanford University. Professor Bakir is also an Associate Editor for Policy Sciences and Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis.
At the summer camp’s opening session, Professor Chetwyn Chan Che-hin, EdUHK’s Vice President (Research and Development), said that the University is committed to supporting early career scholars in public policy in their research endeavours and professional development. He said that he believed the training sessions would enrich participants’ public policy knowledge and enable them to forge networks with other experts and peers in the field.
In his orientation remark delivered at the opening session, Dr Alex He Jingwei, Associate Professor and Associate Head (Research and Development) of APS, said that the camp – with its final selection of 47 participants – has received a very positive response from academic communities around the world. Dr He added that many scholars, especially non-native English speakers, face various hurdles when writing and getting their papers published. “In response to their needs, writing workshops are included in the summer camp to bolster their writing skills,” he said.
The five-day online summer training camp won great appreciation from its participants. One attendee commented: “It combines quantitative and qualitative research methods perfectly and highlights publication-related topics that are in line with the demand of young scholars nowadays. The programme is well-designed, taking into account both theoretical and practical concerns.”
Apart from seminars on topics such as qualitative comparative analysis, quantitative analysis, computational text analysis, and writing workshops, the camp also organised a roundtable talk on career development to enhance the knowledge and skills of participants when it comes to job hunting in academic and research fields.
