Spring 2025 | DIY DOGE
Come up with recommendations for the president for making the government more efficient. Be careful, though — make sure not to break any laws!
- Get Involved
- Policy Challenges
IOP Policy Challenges
Throughout the academic year, the Institute of Politics challenges UChicago students to propose solutions to major issues in local, national, and global politics. The winning team of our Fall 2025 challenge will be awarded $500 per team member.
Fall 2025 Policy Challenge
In teams of 2 to 4 students, propose a policy for improving health outcomes in our local community. The winning team will receive $500 per team member.
Your challenge is to take on a health care issue within Illinois, Chicago or Cook County and produce a program to address it. The issue and its solution can be large – the development of rural health care clinics – or small – a new program using AI to track health outcomes in one small town. All that matters is that you explain how you will pay for it, and, if your plan requires legislative action, your political strategy for getting it done. You must limit your proposal to two pages. No policy experience is necessary – be creative!
- Oct 9: Attend our optional info session on Zoom
- Oct 20: Team registration deadline
- Oct 21 - Nov 7: Schedule office hours with policy challenge mentors to work on your proposal
- Nov 9: Submit your proposal
- Nov 13: Preliminary round (3 minutes to present, 3 minutes for Q&A)
- Nov 17: Final round (5 minutes to present, 5 minutes for Q&A)
Past Challenges
Policy Challenge Super Bowl 2025
The IOP, the University of Kansas, and the University of Cincinnati each challenged their students to act as state lawmakers or as a nongovernmental organization to develop a plan to address a single policy area impacting both rural and urban communities. The winners from each university then presented their proposals at the IOP’s first-ever Policy Challenge Super Bowl.
Fall 2024 | Write Your Own Lame-Duck Legislation
The period between the November election and the beginning of the new Congress in January is known as a "lame-duck session." Students were tasked with creating a piece of bipartisan legislation that could pass during the lame-duck session after Trump's election but before his inauguration.
Spring 2024 | Urban-Rural Policy Challenge
While politically divided, rural and urban areas both struggle with health care, child care and food access; an ongoing opioid crisis, and often, economic disinvestment. We challenged students to create policy proposals to address challenges facing both urban and rural communities.
Fall 2023 | Affordable Housing
In our fourth university-wide contest, we challenged students to present a plan on how they would improve housing affordability in a city or rural area of their choice.
Spring 2023 | World Hunger
The Institute of Politics and the Kiphart Center for Global Health and Social Development challenged students to present a plan to attack hunger anywhere around the globe – from conflict zones to your own college campus and anywhere in between – formed through their specific area of study or interest.
Winter 2023 | Rerouting: Public Transportation for All
The Institute of Politics and the Center for Effective Government joined forces for a university-wide contest soliciting student-generated policy solutions to fix Chicago’s transit system.
Fall 2022 | The $1.6 Trillion Question
The Institute of Politics teamed up with the Harris School of Public Policy for a contest soliciting student-generated policy solutions to the student-debt crisis.