Propose a Capstone Project

There is no cost for student team professional services.

That said, some projects incur additional costs beyond a team’s time. These costs might include, but are not limited to: software, materials, transportation. Generally, we expect that partners would be responsible for these costs.

Typically, a student team will include students with a variety of skills that are matched to the project needs. 

Most students are enrolled in School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs Urban and Regional Policy, Public Policy, and Public Administration programs. All of these students are trained in policy analysis, research methods, economic analysis, and statistics. Student skills will vary by program, including:

• MPP students may have more specialized training in data collection, mapping/GIS, “big data” techniques, survey design and deployment, interviewing, or program evaluation
• MPA students may have expertise in community engagement, budgeting, cost/benefit analysis, or marketing/design
• MUPP students may have training in urban design and physical planning, urban analytics, sustainability and resilience, or urban development.

In addition, graduate students from other School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs programs, such as our Urban Informatics or from other Departments, such as Resilience Studies, will join our Policy Capstone teams. These students will bring skills and knowledge from those disciplines as well.

We have two types of Policy Capstone courses: in-person and online. 

In-person courses meet weekly on Tuesday evenings on the Northeastern campus. This means that your student team will have at least one weekly opportunity to meet with one another and potential to meet with you as well. In-person teams can certainly be invited to meet with you and others in your organization in person. We also encourage any other form(s) of networking as well as site visits, when appropriate. Please bear in mind that the cost to attend any in-person events or project work should not present an undue burden on students in terms of cost. Please contact the Capstone Director with any questions.

Online courses are asynchronous, meaning that there is no regular meeting time. While individuals from online teams may actually live in or near campus, students are not expected nor required to meet in-person as a class, as a team, or with their Capstone partners.

We look for Policy Capstone projects that:

1. Push your work forward in a meaningful way
2. Offer our graduate students the opportunity to apply the skills and knowledge that they have honed while in our policy programs

Successful Policy Capstone scopes often:

• Articulate a clear need for your organization
  • What ‘keeps you up at night’?
  • Projects with a pressing timeline are often not ideal for the Policy Capstone
• Are appropriate to producing results–either incremental or at scale–within a 15 week timeline
  • Projects should consider 8-10 weeks of solid work, with the remaining weeks dedicated to learning more about the project and the organization (at the outset) and writing (toward the end)
• Provide necessary materials (or have readily attainable materials) at the start of the project (e.g. data for analysis, access to stakeholders for interviews)
• Have one or two points of contact who are available for questions and regular feedback throughout the project
• Have other interested individuals in your organization or among your organization’s partners

Because each project will be different, each final set of deliverables will also look different. At minimum, every student team will provide the following to their partners at the end of the semester:

• A written deliverable, often a report or analysis
• A documentation document, which details the process that the group went through to arrive at the final deliverables
• A presentation, which will be annotated for future use by partners
• A video, which will serve as a “trailer” for the project

Beyond the above, some project scopes have also included deliverables that look like: datasets, data collection tools (e.g., surveys, interview or focus group guides), websites, and manuals. It really depends on what the project is!

Policy Capstone project proposals are accepted through the online form year-round. We collect proposals until approximately one month prior to the semester start.

1. Approximately one month prior to the semester start, faculty will survey the current pool of proposals and identify potential projects that they feel they can supervise. 
2. In the next few weeks, faculty will reach out to the listed point of contact to learn more about the project and potentially iterate and refine the initial scope.
3. At the start of the semester, students and faculty work together to identify the best teams to pair with each project. 
   1. Depending on the composition of the class, there may not be enough students to move forward with all projects.
4. Within the first few weeks of the semester, selected project partners will meet with their paired student teams. Faculty will facilitate an initial kickoff meeting, and student teams will facilitate the rest of the Policy Capstone project.

We expect that our project partners:

• Identify one or two key staff to interface with our student team – this helps our teams and our faculty staff organized
• Co-produce an initial Memorandum of Understanding with the student team and faculty – this helps everyone align to the same scope identified at the outset of the semester and a high-level work plan for the rest of the semester
• Regularly meet with the student team over the course of the semester – this helps our teams understand whether they’re on the right track
• When possible, provide opportunities for the student team to meet you in person, visit your organization, or connect with colleagues – this helps our teams understand the deeper context in which their work is situated
• Attend our semester symposium, where student teams will share and hand off their final deliverables
• Participate in the Policy Capstone Partner Exit Survey – this helps us understand how we can improve

Policy Capstone project proposals are accepted through the online form year-round. We collect proposals until approximately one month prior to the semester start.

The Fall Policy Capstone begins in early September to early December. Key dates for the Fall Semester include:

• Early August: Fall Capstone submission cut-off
• Early September: Project selection notification
• Mid-September: Initial kickoff meeting
• Throughout: Regular communication and check-ins with student team
• Late October: Midpoint check-in with faculty
• Early December: Policy Capstone Symposium + School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs Celebration

The Spring Policy Capstone runs from early January to mid-April. Key dates for the Fall Semester include:

• Early December: Spring Capstone submission cut-off
• Mid-January: Project selection notification
• Late January: Initial kickoff meeting
• Throughout: Regular communication and check-ins with student team
• Late February: Midpoint check-in with faculty
• Mid-April: Policy Capstone Symposium + School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs Celebration