The MPA Capstone Project

What is the MPA Capstone?

The MPA Capstone is a compulsory course for all 2nd Year MPA students at LSE.

It forms a key part of the second year curriculum, accounting for more then a quarter of the students' assessed work in the year. Conventional academic work is often highly individualistic and rather sectionalised by discipline or topic. By contrast, the Capstone is designed to ensure that LSE MPA students have an intensive and closely supervised experience of working in a group on an applied public project in a way that extends their capabilities and applies what they have learnt in the MPA core courses in a professional manner.

Capstones are group projects undertaken by a small group of students (usually 3-6 people) for a client organisation on a public policy analysis topic relevant to the client organisation. Team members devote around 1.5 to 2 days a week to the project between October and February, including some vacation time. Each project is supervised by a member of MPA staff, who provides advice and monitors progress. The projects earn a collective grade and students are expected to manage the division and development of work amongst themselves.

Students are individually matched to client organisations in order to induce mutually beneficial relationships, and they bring impressive previous work experience to the projects. The teams are almost always multi-national and invariably multi-lingual. The MPA Capstone therefore offers clients a professional, high standard, fresh thinking consultative service, which at present is offered free of charge.

Filmed Interviews With Capstone Clients, Students and Supervisors

During 2009/10 a series of filmed interviews were conducted with people involved in some of that year's projects. To watch these, follow the links below.

The Capstone in context

Main Highlights from Past Projects|
Real-life Impact of Capstone Projects|
Best Part of the MPA Student Experience|
A Key Element of the MPA Programme|

The Capstone for current students

Client Interview|
Why You Should Consider Participating in a Capstone Project|
Choosing The Right Question For Your Capstone Project|

The organisation of projects

MPA Capstone organisational procedures are designed to make minimal demands on clients and to allow project teams to work effectively within the constraints on their time. There are two key occasions where project team members meet with the client organisation. These meetings allow for the projects to become feasibly scoped, given the project team members' available time and the demands placed on them by LSE's demanding coursework.

Click here| for more information on becoming an LSE MPA Capstone partner organisation, including case studies and comments from supervisors and clients.

Further information for potential clients

Working with a group of MPA students is not always easy for client organisations, since the students have to undertake their work in a time-limited period for assessment purposes and in this period client organisations and personnel often have to cope with changes of market conditions, new demands or policy developments, which clearly must be priorities for them. Experience shows that the best capstone projects are those which make minimal ongoing demands on the client organisation in terms of data, co-operation or staff time and that allow the project team to work in a reasonably self-contained way. Similarly it is important for the projects to be feasibly scoped, given the project team members' available time and the other demands on them from LSE's challenging coursework.

Our procedures are designed to allow project teams to work effectively within these constraints. There are two key meetings or occasions where project team members meet with the client organisation.

October

An initial, detailed set-up meeting. The LSE students are fully briefed prior to this meeting and will use the occasion to scope the project in some depth and ensure that they are fully aware of the client organisation's needs and expectations.

February/March

A final meeting where the capstone team present their results or findings orally and in presentation slides, backed by a near-final draft of their report (usually no more than 10-15,000 words long). This meeting is timetabled for mid/late February, and following the presentation the project team make any revisions arising from the discussion before submitting their final report.

Where client organisation time and resources allow it is useful to have one mid-course correction meeting in early January. This meeting can be in person or via conference call and it focuses on an interim output from the team, on which the client gives feedback and advice and answers any arising questions. The purpose is to update the client on progress and to ensure that the capstone team stays closely aligned with client needs. After this meeting the team make any changes needed begin to prepare the final project report.

Beyond this, it is always very useful to have a single designated contact person within the client organisation who can answer questions from and route extra information to the project team and be a friendly face for team members. At the end of the project this designated person is asked to also to give the LSE supervisor a short, 1 or 2 paragraph, written view of the project team's work from the viewpoint of the client organisation. This judgement is an important part of the project's formal assessment and of the final mark awarded.

We are keen to establish continuing links with a range of client organisations. Potential clients are invited to contact the MPA Programme at the numbers or email listed below, to further discuss how to get your company involved in a Capstone project.

Email: mpa@lse.ac.uk|
Tel: +44 (0)20 7107 5195
Fax: +44 (0)20 7107 5173

Project assessment

The project work is conducted in teams, and the assessment is based on a collective group mark for each component except in exceptional circumstances.

1) A presentation and submission of the project report to the client organisation. The presentation must take place by week 8 of the Lent term, on a date agreed with the client organisation. 20% of the marks are assigned by the client organisation after receipt of the presentation and project report.

2) A group project report of up to 15,000 words to be submitted during the Lent Term. The report is read by academic markers and their assessment accounts for 60% of the final grade.

Additionally, each group member must write a personal reflection on their contribution to the group's work, to be submitted alongside the report. The reflection should be no more than 600 words, and should include specific details of the student's contributions to the project. The reflections should not be included in the report submitted to the client.

Any appendices to the project report should only consist of technical data and may not contain any substantive analysis.

3) The final 20% of the marks are allocated by the Capstone supervisor on the basis of the group's performance in terms of (i) scoping and project development (including coping with difficulties) and (ii) group working and self-management as a team.

Previous capstone projects

Click here| to view a student discussion on a Capstone Project undertaken with the UK National Audit Office in 2008/09.

MPA Capstone projects to date

International Organisations
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development	Evaluating the Impact of the BAS Programme: Enterprise Development in Bulgaria, Croatia and the Russian Federation
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development	Improving the Reporting System of EBRD's TAM Programme
European Commission	Supporting Industrial Parks: an Impact Evaluation of ECOP 1.2.1
Inter-American Development Bank	Assessing the Quality of Public Policy: A New Cross-country Dataset
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development	World Budget Practices and Procedures: A Pilot Survey
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development	Disaster Management and E-Government Applications
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development	Data Analysis of the OECD Budget Practices and Procedures Survey
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development	Adding Value to the OECD Budget Practices and Procedures Survey
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development	Government at a Glance - An Assessment of Censuses as an Internationally Comparable Dataset on Characteristics of the Public Workforce
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development	Budget Practices Indicators - An Index Construction and Analysis of Budgeting Practices in OECD Countries
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development	Balancing Act: Exploring the Role of Vocational Education and Training in a Changing Economic Landscape
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development	Budgeting for Capital in the OECD+5+5
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development	Suggestions for the Inclusion of Fiscal Stability Indicators in the Next Edition of 'Government at a Glance' in 2011
World Bank Institute	The Dynamics of Legislative Rewards: An Empirical Analysis of Commonwealth Countries. Click here\| for press article related to this capstone.
World Bank Institute	Parliamentary Assessment - An Analysis of Existing Frameworks and Application to Selected Countries
World Bank Institute & Commonwealth Parliamentary Association	An Analysis of Commonwealth Member States' Codes of Conduct

UK Government
Bank of England	Commercial Bank Money Settlement in Large-Value Payment Systems - Drivers, Constraints and Implications
Bank of England	The Payment Migration Puzzle: Explaining the Persistence of Low Value Payments in Large Value Payment Systems
Cabinet Office Strategy Unit	Improving the Accessibility of Public Services: A Review of International Innovations
Department for Energy and Climate Change	What Selection of Indicators Should the UK DECC Use to Identify the Economic Benefits of the Progress Towards the Low Carbon Transition Plan?
Department for International Development	Does Aid Decrease Tax Revenue in Developing Countries?
Department for International Development	Improving Fiscal Scrutiny through Legislative Strengthening
Department for International Development	Developing a Framework to Assess Public Sector Financial Management and Fiduciary Risk
Department for Work and Pensions	Measuring Pensioner Poverty
Department for Work and Pensions	Population Registries, Information Sharing And E-Governance In Comparative Perspective
Financial Services Authority	Mechanisms and Indicators Measuring The Post-Implementation Impact of Depolarisation
Financial Services Authority	Quantifying the Benefits to Consumers of Having a More Stable Banking System
HM Treasury	A Country Comparative Study of Public Spending Control and Reporting Frameworks
House of Commons	A Review of the Collection and Use of Evidence by Select Committees
National Audit Office	Measuring Public Sector Value
National Audit Office	Reach and Influence: A Comparative Analysis of Policy-Influencing Research
National Audit Office	Developing Indices to Compare Performance across the UK Central Government
National Audit Office	Capturing Customer Insight

Private Sector
Accenture	Public Service Value Analysis: Immigration Policy in the United Kingdom
Accenture	Does Joined-Up Governance Improve Service Delivery for Older Persons?
Arup	Charting a Political Pathway to Achieve an 80% Reduction in CO2 Emissions: An Analysis of Political Feasibility and Public Acceptance of Climate Change Policy in The UK
Deloitte	Solutions to International Challenges in Public Private Partnership Model Selection
Deloitte	Improving Service Delivery to an Ageing Population: Strategies for UK Local Authorities Further information: LSE Press Release \| Full Report\| Supporting Statistics\|
EDS	Biometrics and Privacy: A study of Behaviours and Attitudes
EDS	Enhancing National Resilience: An Analysis of Information Management Capabilities in UK Emergency Planning
EDS	An International Investigation of Technology in Prison and Probation - The Role of Technology in Modernising the Criminal Justice System of England and Wales
EDS	Combating Exclusion in a Cashless Society
Serco Institute	Public-Private Partnerships for the 21st Century: Towards Enhanced Service Delivery

NGOs and Think Tanks
Action Aid	Tax Revenue and Public Spending on Education: What is the Relationship Between Tax Revenue and Public Education Spending in Developing Countries?
Demos	Measuring Everyday Democracy: Evaluating the Index for the EU and Recommendations for an Index in Latin America
Institute for Government	The DIUS Experience - Lessons for Machinery of Government Changes
Institute for Government	Principles of a Healthy Cabinet System: An Analysis of the British Cabinet System 1992-2009
International Budget Partnership	Budget Transparency: Determinants, Impacts on Policy Outcomes and the Role of Audit Institutions
Overseas Development Institute	Cooks in the Kitchen: IMF Influence on Budget Processes
Revenue Watch	Improving Legislative Oversight of Natural Resource Management
Shelter	Security of Tenure in the Private Rented Sector: A European Cross-Country Analysis
Shelter	The Impact of Homelessness on a Child's Education
Urban Age LSE	Reform Scenarios For Mumbai