This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009(Public Law 111-5). The project funds a Small Grant for Training and Research in Neuroscience and Public Policy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison). Three graduate students are supported annually who are engaged in integrated training and research in neuroscience and public policy in the recently established Neuroscience and Public Policy graduate program (N&PP) at UW-Madison. The N&PP is a dual-degree graduate program that leads to a Ph.D. degree in neuroscience, granted by the Neuroscience Training Program (NTP) and a Master of Public Affairs degree (M.P.A.), with an emphasis on Science and Technology Policy, awarded by the La Follette School of Public Affairs. The Program is based on two strongly held beliefs: (1) that sound science and technology policy is essential for the well being of society; and (2) that a step toward ensuring such policy is to train future scientists who are informed about the making of public policy and are prepared to participate in doing so.
The N&PP brings together faculty from the NTP and the La Follette School to train students for a Ph.D. degree in neuroscience and a Masters degree in public affairs (public policy). The training is accomplished in a program that integrates classroom and laboratory research training in neuroscience with a classroom-based education in public policy. In addition to fulfilling all of the requirements that have been established by the NTP and the La Follette School for the Ph.D. degree in neuroscience and the M.P.A. degree, respectively, N&PP students also are required to take the Neuroscience and Public Policy Seminar, which meets monthly, during each of the years that they are enrolled in the N&PP. Thus even after students have completed the requirements for the M.P.A. degree, typically by the end of the third summer, and are working full-time in the last two years of the Program on their doctoral research they maintain an involvement with issues related to public policy. N&PP students also are required to write a critical paper on a topic that bridges neuroscience and public policy as part of the Preliminary Examination for the Ph.D. degree, and complete a summer internship in an agency or organization that is directly involved in science policy.
The N&PP trains future neuroscientists who will have strong research and public policy skills. Currently, there is no other integrated graduate program in the country with goals comparable to those of the N&PP. It is anticipated that one of the major impacts of the N&PP nationwide will be to serve as a model for other institutions who decide to develop similar graduate programs that will integrate training in public policy with neuroscience, genetics or other appropriate biological or physical sciences.
