Dear YEP-D 2017 Participant,
We have now about fifteen days to the Young Economic
Policy Designers 2017 workshop. The workshop is about policymaking and requires
a sound theoretical knowledge. Upon the standard curricula of your departments,
now it is the time to build a common knowledge base for all participants.
Please kindly note that fulfilling the requirements of
this information pack is not optional. So, you are now invited to devote the
next two weeks to refreshing your knowledge on the following. You can use any
respectable resource like your earlier textbooks, encyclopedias, handbooks,
lecture notes or web pages of respected institutions. Homework sites or
ordinary blogs might not be a wise choice. Remember that internationally
renowned textbooks are the best tie-breakers when two different resources
deliver different information on the same thing.
First, let’s remember the five main themes of the
Workshop:
(1) Equality of opportunities or outcome
(2) Aging society
(3) Innovative society
(4) Infrastructure for long term growth
(5) Energy
Second, given the themes, we provide you with the
following list of keywords and phrases: Adequacy, Aging society, Automation, Constraint,
Contestable market, Conventional energy, Cyber security, Data protection, Democratic
decision making, Demographics, Digital currency, Effective, Efficient,
Equitable, Environmental hazard, Equality, Fiscal constraint, Government, Green
economy, Hard infrastructure, Inequality of opportunity, Innovation, Intergenerational
inequality, International movement of labor, Internet of Things, Labor market
rigidity, Market distortion, Medical efficiency, Objective function, Outlook, Parental
difference, Pluralist liberal democracy, Policy, Privacy, Productivity gain, Public
education, Public sphere, Renewable energy, Research and Development, Social
security system, Social well-being, Soft infrastructure, Spatial, Sustainable, Technological
innovation, Temporal, Transit hub. The terms in the list are in alphabetical
order and not categorized with respect to themes. A proper coverage of them by
each participant is highly valuable to us, serving as the fabric of technical
communication.
Third, besides the keywords and phrases above, you may
find the following documents useful. We know they make a huge volume of
reading. Now it’s time to use your skimming and scanning skills.
Document 01 Document 02 Document 03 Document 04 Document 05 Document 06
Document 07 Document 08 Document 09 Document 10 Document 11 Document 12
Fourth, we believe the following set of questions
might be useful to trigger the policymaker inside your brain:
We believe design is an integral dimension of
policymaking. Some may argue against that view, yet a design perspective is
mostly useful to get a holistic understanding. What does holistic mean?
It is often said that good analysis is essential for
reliable synthesis. So, what is analysis? What is synthesis? Do you think
synthesis is in connotation with design? How can analysis be good? What is
reliability? What is the meaning of Garbage In Garbage Out?
Can somebody develop useful policies in the absence of
sound/scientific knowledge? Do you agree with the view that policymaking is
more of an art rather than science?
Have you ever heard about the Ockham’s Razor
(sometimes written as Occam’s Razor) or any philosophical razor principle? Have
you heard about the principle of parsimony? While building a model or writing
down a project report, your professors often say Keep It Small and Simple (or
Keep It Stupid Simple). Do you observe any parallels among the terms mentioned
in this paragraph?
Finally, let’s note couple of points on the structure
and workings of the Workshop:
-1- During the workshop you will work in groups that will
be formed by our Scenario Creator on the first day of YEP-D 2017. Each team
will be guided by two or three mentors who were the participants of YEP-D 2016.
-2- Once the first theme has been introduced, the
workshop begins. During the time allocated to each theme, you are supposed to discuss/clarify
issues and develop/design views and policies.
-3- Each theme in YEP-D 2017 will come with many
ill-defined questions. So, before going through your designs, it will be crucial
to narrow down these questions to workable dimensions and to identify the
relevant pieces of information and data. Note that there is no single, unique,
or textbook-type answers. It can even be hard to reach a complete solution.
-4- Regardless of the type and depth of your responses,
you will be reporting them on a poster. Given the limited space of a poster, effective
use of text, visuals and conceptual links seems to be essential.
-5- Upon completion of each theme by teams, poster of
each team will be viewed and criticized by the body of participants, mentors
and organizers.
We look forward to seeing you in İzmir!
