2019: THE REFUGEE SIMULATION

WHAT IS THE NASPAA-BATTEN STUDENT SIMULATION COMPETITION?

The NASPAA-Batten Student Simulation Competition is a day-long event that allows graduate students in public policy and related fields to test their skills on real-world data. This year, using a turn-based, participatory simulation developed for the competition by the Center for Leadership Simulation and Gaming, student teams will take on cabinet-level positions of a virtual country. Participants enter policy decisions in the simulation software to see how their policies affect their citizens, their economy, and the migrants themselves.

As part of the competition, teams will be expected to put together a policy memo and presentation. Evaluations of student performance will be based on two factors: 1) Their team’s simulation scores, and 2) Observations by subject matter experts serving as judges at each host site.

WHAT HAPPENS ON THE COMPETITION DAY?

The competition is an all day event. Teams will travel to their host site, where they will undertake three rounds of the simulation: twice in the morning, plus once after lunch. Each round will last approximately one hour.

After the three rounds, student teams will be given time to put together a policy memo and presentation. Experts in related fields will serve as judges.

The experts will evaluate the policy memos and the presentations. Following the presentations, a short debriefing will explain the logic and data behind the simulation. Winners will be announced at the end of the day.

2019 COMPETITION HOST SITES

• Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas División de Administración Pública (Ciudad de México)
• Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy (Washington, D.C.)
• KDI School of Public Policy and Management (Sejong, Republic of Korea)
• North South University South Asian Institute of Policy and Governance (Dhaka, Bangladesh)
• Rutgers University Newark School of Public Affairs and Administration (Rutgers, NJ)
• The American University in Cairo School of Global Affairs and Public Policy (Cairo, Egypt)
• United Nations University - MERIT (Maastricht, Netherlands) in partnership with School of Public Policy, Central European University (Budapest, Hungary)
• The University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy (Ann Arbor, MI)
• The University of Texas at Austin Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs (Austin, TX)
• University of San Francisco School of Management (San Francisco, CA)
• Villanova University College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (Villanova, PA)