Program in Practical Policy Projects

The Dearborn Department of Public Health (DPH) was formally launched in April 2022, becoming only the second city in Michigan with a public health department, and the first to do so voluntarily. The Department was founded on the principle of “Health in All Policies.” Health in All Policies is a collaborative approach to improving the health of all people by incorporating health considerations into decision-making across sectors and policy areas. The goal of Health in All Policies is to ensure that all decision-makers are informed about the health, equity, and sustainability consequences of var...

The student provided ACCESS with strategic planning support, including qualitative program evaluation (survey design and implementation, focus groups), agency-wide theory of change model, etc., to help streamline internal operations.

Planet Detroit is a weekly online newsletter whose mission is to raise awareness about Metro Detroit’s environmental and public health challenges and potential solutions, hold powerful entities accountable, and empower readers to take action in their communities. Planet Detroit is working to build a resource hub for Detroit residents and relevant stakeholders to be able to understand the assets, gaps, and needs in the local information on public health and environmental data. To assist with this project, the students worked to identify and collect relevant local data relating to risk and expos...

The students worked with YFSU to assess policies impacting custodial and noncustodial families in the child support system and develop a toolkit to be used with potential funders and policymakers.

Blight is a serious issue in the city of Detroit; in dealing with this issue, the mechanism of demolition poses a variety of issues relating to safety, sustainability, and funding due to the financial costs associated with demolition. To deal with blight more sustainably, deconstruction prior to complete demolition was proposed. In response, the PCLP Spring 2022 fellows crafted several recommendations, divided by immediate, intermediate, and future actions. The recommendations included: (1) addressing current demolition practices, (2) increasing accountability for residents from city leadershi...

This project focused on the preparation for the introduction of legalized marijuana into the city of Ann Arbor. It was in partnership with the City of Ann Arbor and Mayor Christopher Taylor. Student was responsible for identifying peer communities in states that have recently legalized marijuana and for conducting research on their experiences. The student was also responsible for utilizing interviews, web searches and surveys and policy research to develop requested reports.

Made possible by the 2012 JOBS Act, Community Capital fundraising has become an increasingly popular way for small regional businesses and fledgling startups to raise capital while providing investment opportunities to investors at all levels of income and sophistication.  This report analyzes data from Honeycomb Credit, a major crowdfunding platform, to evaluate SEC regulations on crowdfunding, identify gaps in current reporting requirements, and recommend areas for further research. The team looked at comparisons between businesses within two major cities, Pittsburgh and Cleveland, due t...

The City of Adrian, Michigan seeks to become the first community in North America to have fully autonomous electric bus service providing its public transportation. The City intends to launch a fixed route system with Project Rising Tide, a program offering coordinated state resources and technical assistance in Michigan. In addition, the City is working to bring ongoing federal financial assistance towards the service. The student research assistant helped with examining current federal support for transportation, researched sustainable transportation funding, and helped determine how to ...

The team’s research evaluated the economic benefits of three city-government climate resilience projects implemented in the Great Lakes Region (GLR). The case studies are adaptation projects implemented in Toledo, Ohio, Two Harbors, Minnesota and Ann Arbor, Michigan.  The cases indicate climate-resilience focused interventions were cost-beneficial for Two Harbors and Ann Arbor and projected to be cost-beneficial for Toledo. The research illustrates the complexity of climate-resiliency projects and the economic considerations that exist within them. The report provides an overview of each p...

The fellows provided technical assistance to design the survey methodology for the State of the Court Administrative Office Friend of the Court Bureau’s Guideline revision project. Separate surveys were created for two distinct audiences of the Guideline users:  parents who have an existing custody, parenting time, and child support case; and legal/court professionals who work with parents to determine a parenting time schedule. The parents survey, in particular, explored the impact of a change in parenting time on payment of a child support obligation

The City of Adrian, MI, Active Transportation Pilot Project with the Michigan Department of Transportation and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services regarding non-motorized trails and Complete Streets project.  The internship provided an asset mapping demonstrating where assets are in relationship to the current and planned trail/Complete Streets features locations.  The work may also involve additional surveying of the targeted population over time and designing an evaluation plan to assess the project’s impact.

To support Michigan reformers in their consideration of possibly adopting the top-two primary, the P3E student team conducted research and produced a report on the likely benefits and challenges of adopting the top-two primary in Michigan.

The research fellow worked with the office of State Representative Kevin Coleman and conducted a 50 state feasibility study of nursing home responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sanctuary Farms is an urban farm and nature sanctuary in Detroit, with a mission to connect the local community with the environment and food through active participation in closing the food loop. As part of their operations, Sanctuary Farms aims to engage in industrial-scale composting, and this research project involved conducting extensive research to understand the policy and permit requirements for composting in the City of Detroit, as well as at the state and federal levels. The research process involved gathering information from various resources, including the client and the UM Librar...

The student team conducted a grocery store feasibility study to help the community determine if the Township has the necessary traffic to support a full service grocery store and also help to determine the best location as well as the best type of grocery store for the area.

The Dearborn Department of Public Health was formally launched in April 2022, becoming only the 2nd city in Michigan with a public health department, and the first to do so voluntarily. The Department was founded on the principle of Health in All Policies. Health in All Policies is a collaborative approach to improving the health of all people by incorporating health considerations into decision-making across sectors and policy areas. Health in All Policies aims to ensure that all decision-makers are informed about the health, equity, and sustainability consequences of various policy optio...

The students explored a variety of approaches that WISD could adopt and developed a set of policy recommendations for the agency in regards to distributing state special education funds to schools in its jurisdiction.

The Michigan Action Plan for Fatherhood Involvement was created to explore ways of expanding support for the involvement of fathers in parenting/custody arrangements and to guide the establishment of permanent structures for improving policies and programs that benefit fathers and their families. The project sought to understand 50/50 shared parenting legislation on the state level and ways the organization could advocate and support such initiatives. During the project, the student researcher considered questions such as: how do states define 50/50 shared parenting, are these pieces of legisl...

The students examined and made recommendations related to the potential benefits of multi-county public defense systems.

Numerous factors contribute to special education teacher and paraprofessional shortages in K-12 education in the United States. The project is a comprehensive literature review that examines existing information and data on this topic, identifies gaps in research and access to information, and offers some potential policy solutions or responses.  The team’s key takeaways and conclusions from the literature review: Better certification, recruitment, and retention policies at the local, state, and federal levels are needed to respond to shortages and prevent future shortages in specia...

This project centered on quantifying the economic impact of USCBP policies regarding containerized shipping with the intent of showing the adverse effects of limiting such cargo from entry to The Port of Monroe. Impact was analyzed in terms of direct partners, regional stakeholders, and the overall state economy. Students worked with P3E Director and Port of Monroe Port Director to identify impacts of new USCBP policy and draft recommendations based on research results.

The University of Michigan-Flint Office of Economic Development received a Cybersecurity Training Center designation and is interested in pursuing and implementing cybersecurity training in North Flint. The team recommended a cybersecurity training program, CyberStart America, and identified a community center, Berston Field House, to gauge community interest and discuss implementing this program. They also worked with Berston Field House to create a survey to be used to understand community interest, which can also be used as supporting documentation for future grant proposals by UM-Flint. ...

Students worked with the U.S. Department of Energy's Arctic Energy Office to create an “Arctic Research Resource Compendium,” which identified and cataloged university-based Arctic research institutes in the U.S. and Canada. The research resources included a list of Arctic and polar institutes, the focus of each of these institutes, and specific research projects of interest, particularly in the energy, environment and climate space.

The project involved identifying, describing, mapping, and making recommendations about the myriad rules, regulations, and restrictions relating to the usage of coal bottom ash, an industrial byproduct, as well as how to transport the material in an environmentally safe way.

Soularadity in Highland Park is a community driven, energy justice non-profit building a brighter future with education, organizing and people-powered clean energy. 

The student worked with Engine Advocacy and Research to evaluate the impact of state-by-state privacy laws on startup technology companies. Currently, data privacy laws are on a state level, resulting in varying definitions of compliance. Through interviewing stakeholders of different startups, the student learned about the impact of the current data privacy laws landscape on barriers to scalability, compliance costs (legal, operational, technology, etc.), and any implications of these costs. The student’s findings will ultimately help inform policymakers and ensure a conducive environment for...

Provided research assistance to INL’s efforts to create nimble data tools to support informed decision-making.

The student worked with Engine Advocacy and Research to evaluate the impact of state-by-state privacy laws on startup technology companies. Currently, data privacy laws are on a state level, resulting in varying definitions of compliance. Through interviewing stakeholders of different startups, the student learned about the impact of the current data privacy laws landscape on barriers to scalability, compliance costs (legal, operational, technology, etc.), and any implications of these costs. The student’s findings will ultimately help inform policymakers and ensure a conducive environment for...

The student team assisted the community partners to make the case for development of affordable housing.  They also helped determine which parcels might be most feasible and/or best suited for this sort of development, allowing the partners to prioritize which parcels are recommended to City Council for affordable housing or mixed-income development.

State Representative Padma Kuppa has been working to pass H.R. 248 – a policy resolution in the state of Michigan that calls for the federal government to quickly enact legislation addressing the backlog in employment–based (EB) green cards, including, but not limited to, H.R. 3648 (the EAGLE Act). The goals of the project were: to research the landscape of EB green cards, including the national backlog and economic impact of the immigrant workforce; to document previous and proposed legislation on the national backlog at the state and federal levels; and to identify and engage with stakeholde...