Policy Challenge

Applications are now closed for the 2023 Georgetown Public Policy Challenge.

Students enrolled in any Georgetown graduate program are eligible to apply, either as an individual or as a team of 2-5 students. Individuals will be placed on teams with other students with similar policy interests. The application for the 2023 Public Policy Challenge is now open. Applications are due by January 27, 2023. Please address any questions to publicpolicychallenge@georgetown.edu. 

The Georgetown Public Policy Challenge tasks graduate students with developing innovative solutions to issues in the Washington, DC region. Hundreds of students have participated and thousands of dollars in prize money has been awarded through this competition since its founding in 2014, leading to the development and implementation of proposals focusing on a large range of policy issues across the District.

Georgetown University School of Medicine students Kira Chandran (M‘23), Pei-Ying Kobres (M‘23), Chloe Wang (M‘23) and Ruth Watson (M‘23) were awarded the grand prize at the 2022 Georgetown Public Policy Challenge final hosted by the McCourt School. Their proposal, “​​Within Reach: Ending Opioid-Related Deaths in the District,” was recognized as the most outstanding innovative policy solution to help address a challenge in the DC community.

The winner of the 2021 Public Policy Challenge was the Buy Your Own Building project, which proposed providing small businesses in DC the right of first refusal to purchase their buildings and create a grant for equity impact enterprises in Wards 7 and 8 to assist with down payments.

Other past winning proposals have addressed the issues young homeless parents face in the District, DC’s high asthma prevalence and ER utilization rates, a mobile clinic to supply free flu vaccinations to vulnerable neighborhoods, a skills-based job training program housed within public libraries, a workshop teaching forgiveness and reconciliation to high-risk Latino youth, and a mobile-based application that directly addresses absenteeism and academic performance.