Aspen Policy Academy

The Aspen Institute’s Tech Policy Hub is thrilled to announce the launch of our Train the Trainer short courses. We’re piloting the Train the Trainer short courses to train experienced policy professionals to teach our methods for policy impact, so that we can scale our support for policy in the public interest. We will host 2 virtual training courses, each 1 week long, with limited enrollment. Each course will have two parts: 1) student learning, in which trainers learn the material as students; and 2) teacher learning, in which trainers learn how to teach the materials.

The Policy Impact course is tentatively scheduled for May 15 – May 19, 2023. Trainers will learn how to teach participants a clear path to achieving policy impact through steps such as defining and researching policy problems, stakeholder mapping, scoping solutions, evaluating alternatives, building effective outputs for your stakeholders, and advocacy.

The Writing and Communicating for Policy course is tentatively scheduled for June 5 – June 9, 2023. Trainers will learn how to improve participants’ communication skills through sessions such as translating technical concepts to plain language, writing for policy, argumentative writing, writing effective policy memos, writing a public comment, briefing stakeholders, public speaking, and media training.

We encourage STEM experts with 3 or more years of policy experience and an interest in training others on how to have policy impact to apply. Selected trainers will be paid a $2,000 honoraria for each program in which they enroll. The top graduates from each program will also be invited to serve as future trainers in our teaching programs at a rate of $100/hr.

We hosted a webinar on March 1st giving an overview of the program and answering questions from potential applicants. You can view a recording of that webinar here.