Messages from the Program Directors

Message from the Academic Director

The study of public policy is the study of what challenges us and how we change our circumstances to meet these problems head on. While the world may appear to have no shortage of problems to solve, it also has no shortage of people interested and motivated to bring new tools to the table to face these challenges. What happens though, when the new tools designed to help us pose their own policy, legal, and value-based challenges?

This is ground zero for students in the Master of Public Policy. From day one of the program, they confront how politics, policymakers and those interested in the public good can adapt to and lead with rapidly changing technological forces.

The Master of Public Policy is a unique offering that is designed to understand, use and work with the tools of our current digital transformation. Digital technologies aren’t just what we study, they are the how and the why of our program of learning. Artificial intelligence, advanced financial, communications and commercial technologies are all being reshaped. Government doesn’t only regulate them; they are forced to adopt and work with them. And those who want to work for or with government(s) need to understand this new global technological environment.

The MPP differentiates itself from other public policy programs in Canada in several ways. First, our program is offered completely online with both asynchronous and synchronous pieces to give students both guided and self-led ways to manage their graduate experience. Second, the content of our seminar and skills-based modules is unique in Canada. The focus on digital adaptation in our problem-based learning seminar offerings is designed so students are learning of-the-moment concepts and methods. Our skills labs give students applied learning opportunities that put their competencies to work right away so they have experience as they enter the job market. Our unique digital society and housing streams let our students gain knowledge and experience in the pressing problems facing society. Finally, our academic team is joined in the classroom by world-class practitioner instructors to give students even more real-world policy knowledge and opportunities to grow their network while still studying.

Over the 12 months that students study with us, they find themselves adapting to the rapid pace of the working world, skilling-up to take on roles in government, the private sector, media and not-for-profits. The intensive course format gives our students a fast-paced learning environment that mirrors the working world in many ways. Having graduated several cohorts of professionals, the MPP can proudly point to policy leaders across sectors who are McMaster grads. We invite you to join us.

Dr. Andrea Lawlor
Academic Director
Master of Public Policy Program

Dr. Graeme Stewart
Executive Director
Master of Public Policy Program

Message from the Executive Director

The history of public policy is a history of failure.

This statement might seem bleak, but I find it rather an expression of hope.

Public policy is usually enacted in the pursuit of some ideal end, some future state that is better than the status quo. What we understand as the modern welfare state was created to address the “five giants” that bedevilled industrial society—want, ignorance, squalor, idleness, and disease. After 75 years of policy making intended to slay these giants, they persist. In some cases, the solutions have created new problems.

And yet, we are likely better off. Policy failure is a feature, not a bug, in the work to continuously reframe and refine our approach to the challenges that emerge from our collective lives together. When we fail, we learn and we try something new. As Samuel Beckett, the craggiest of all Irish writers, observed:

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

In our disrupted and demanding age, the challenges are more complex. The rate of technological change is exponentially faster. The impact on our economic, political, and social institutions is simultaneously profound and unpredictable. These factors elevate the need for innovative solutions while increasing the likelihood that these policies will fail. Creating meaningful change in this environment requires a special kind of policy leader.

They must be ambitious, in their belief that change is both desirable and possible, and that they can make a positive contribution to that change. A policy leader must also embrace risk, with an appreciation of how failure can be as useful as success. They must also be humble, fully aware that there are no easy answers and that the answers they develop will necessarily be incomplete and fragile. They must also have a deep appreciation of the fact that public policy ultimately affects real people in real places. With faith in public institutions at their lowest ebb in living memory, policy leaders must continue to deliver for citizens.

At the McMaster MPP, we are training the next generation of policy leaders to respond to the challenges of the digital age. Through our 12-month program, you will learn the core skills needed to work in public policy from leading academics and professionals. You also acquire specialized knowledge that will empower you to make a transformative impact. Our Digital Society stream creates policy leaders who are also technologists, uniquely equipped to respond to the impact of emerging technologies on the public sphere. Our Housing stream equips graduates with the insight needed to respond to the urgent need for sustainable and affordable homes – something intimately linked to our societal well-being. The MPP is equally applicable in government and the private sector, or indeed anywhere touched by public policy (which is everywhere).

If this resonates with you—the combination of ambition for change, tolerance for risk, and deep knowledge and humbleness in the face of wicked problems—there is a place for you in the McMaster MPP. We are very proud to have created a degree that meets the moment and we hope you will join us to create the future, one productive failure at a time.