On the 9th and 10th April 2013, the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) of Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) inked Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs) in Washington D.C., USA with the Georgetown Public Policy Institute (GPPI) of Georgetown University and the School of Public Policy (MSPP) of University of Maryland respectively.
The signings were the follow up from the state visit of His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam to the United States of America (USA) on 12-14 March 2013. Both MOUs outline collaboration in the new Master of Public Policy and Management (MPPM) programme that will be offered by IPS later this year. The MPPM is a unique interdisciplinary program that draws in policy areas that are comparatively distinctive to Brunei Darussalam – Islamic governance and international relations, energy policy and management, and environmental policy and management. This national perspective is blended with a global outlook whereby during the 18-month duration of the programme, the MPPM students will spend their third semester in one of IPS’s partner policy schools in the United States. IPS has partnered with four of the world’s leading schools of public policy including GPPI at Georgetown University, MSPP at Maryland University, Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University and Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. The third semester in the USA will also include a two-week study visit to Washington, D.C. meeting people from key policymaking institutions including the House of Congress, policy think tanks, and non-profit sectors.
It is expected that the MPPM could make a direct impact and contribution in Brunei Darussalam especially on the Government of His Majesty the Sultan of Brunei Darussalam, as well as in ASEAN and beyond. His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam announced on 20th November 2012 at the 7th East Asia Summit (EAS), the offer of scholarships to EAS participating countries to study in UBD’s MPPM. It is hoped the MPPM will strengthen cooperation in higher education and people-to-people linkages amongst EAS participating countries.
The MOU between UBD’s IPS and Georgetown University’s GPPI, held on the 9th April 2013 was signed by Dr Hjh Anita Binurul Zahrina POKLWDSS Hj Abdul Aziz, UBD’s Assistant Vice Chancellor for Global Affairs and Dr Joyce Teo Siew Yean, the Director of IPS with Professor Robert M Groves, Georgetown University’s Provost, and Dr Edward Montgomery, the Dean of GPPI. Present to witness the auspicious event was Dato Paduka Hj Zulkarnain bin Hj Hanafi, the Permanent Secretary of Higher Education at Ministry of Education and Vice Chancellor of UBD.
The second MOU was signed on the 10th April 2013 by Dr Hjh Anita Binurul Zahrina POKLWDSS Hj Abdul Aziz, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Global Affairs and Dr Joyce Teo Siew Yean, Director of IPS of UBD, with Professor Mary Ann Rankin, Senior Vice President and Provost, and Dr Donald Kettl, Dean of School of Public Policy of the University of Maryland.
The collaboration also includes cooperation in fundamental research and higher education of mutual interests to both institutions such as scholarly visits of students, postdoctoral fellows and academics as well as joint research projects and publications, and exchanges of publications and information in the field of policy studies.
Both GPPI and MSPP are among the premier public policy schools in the US in the specialty areas of public policy according to the US News and World Report. GPPI is a leading public policy institute affiliated with Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. It offers porgrammes in public policy, international development policy and policy management as well as administers several professional certificate programs and has ten affiliated research institutes. GPPI is ranked among the top in Public Affairs programs in the US, putting GPPI in the 91st percentile of all programs in the country. It also ranked highly in the specialty areas of Public Policy Analysis, Health Policy and Management and Social Policy.
MSPP is one of 14 schools at the University of Maryland. It offers both full-time and part-time Master of Public Policy and Master of Public Management degrees, as well as a Ph.D. in Policy Studies; and it also promotes multidisciplinary programs by offering joint degree programs with the University of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering, the College of Life Sciences Conservation Biology program, the Robert H. Smith School of Business, and the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore. Both institutions excel in in their training to help students in designing smart policies and put them into practice in the public, private, and non-profit sectors, in the U.S. and around the world.