Policy Oriented Research

Post-doctoral Fellowships and Visiting Scholar Appointments for Policy-Oriented Researchers

Post-doctoral fellowships and visiting scholar appointments for the duration of one academic year will be provided to creative established or junior researchers who will work with subject matter experts at UC Berkeley. The task of the visiting scholars and post-doctoral fellows will be to produce policy relevant white papers providing rigorous analyses of the underlying causes and offering effective/innovative (where possible based upon market oriented or public/private) approaches for resolving the most pressing socio-economic and environmental problems facing each country.

Potential topics may include:

• Improving Water Supply Management
• Dealing with Fresh Water Scarcity
• Improving Irrigation Productivity and Agriculture, especially in nations where agriculture has the potential of becoming a comparative advantage
• Soil Erosion
• Erosion of Social Capital/Trust
• Pollution
• Deforestation
• Reducing Fatality Levels Caused by Traffic Accidents—especially in countries where such fatalities are high on a Per Capita Basis
• Prostitution
• Depression, Mental Illness, Suicide
• Improving the Quality of Education and Vocational Training
• Improving the Quality of Healthcare
• Improving the Quality of Institutions and Governance
• Stemming Rising Divorce rates
• Expansion of female labor force participation.
• Increasing the Scale and Scope of Angel and Early Investments
• Creating Well-Functioning and Effective Financial Systems
• Intellectual Property: Copyright, Trademarks, and Patents
• Stemming and Reversing Alarming and Steady Rises in Rates of Substance Abuse