As you learn about us, you will find a variety of different backgrounds, fields of expertise, and professional or academic trajectories. There is one solid reason why we have converged: a life-long interest in the public good, alongside a permanent wish to somehow contribute to it. This has been ever-present in each of our individual lives; GOAT Policy is how we decided to do it as a team.
This project stems from our conviction that public policies are one of the most direct paths to a community’s well-being. However, our personal experience led us to believe that public policies often resemble guesswork and are in sore need of multidisciplinary groundwork providing adequate, effective answers to current societal issues. GOAT Policy comes from our conviction that good policies are essential, but they require information – tangible data and established knowledge – drawing from all relevant disciplines, and always including perspectives and experiences from the people they aim to serve.
Public policies exist in a multifaceted reality:
- They can steer and regulate our lives and behavior; therefore they need to be drawn from a place of deep understanding of the people they affect – their thoughts, emotions, difficulties, and behaviors.
- Policies also intersect with the legal system of the contexts they are deployed in; they need to effectively understand and navigate these complex legal environments.
- Finally, policies are tools of governance; designing public policies without knowledge of governance and the institutional networks is simply wasteful and shortsighted.
In recognition of this, and out of a need to contribute to the surrounding that shaped us, we built GOAT Policy.
Why “Goat” in particular? Mostly, we like the animal. If you need a smarter, more marketable reason, you could consider that goats are, after all, stubborn animals; but also resourceful, and skilled at navigating some of the most inhospitable environments.