The Centre for Human Development and Public Policy (CHDPP) is a joint initiative between the UCD Geary Institute, UCD Conway Institute and the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. The Centre is co-directed by Professor Colm Harmon and Professor James Heckman and includes a number of internal and external researchers.

The core objective of the Centre is to contribute to the increasing need for evidence-based policy in Ireland and elsewhere by developing an international programme of research on experimental and non-experimental methods in policy design and evaluation. The Centre uses the existing skills and expertise within the UCD and Chicago research community to create new science, new outputs, and build capacity in the research interface between biological, psychological and social sciences influences on lifecourse outcomes and the associated policy interventions that influence these outcomes. It aims to improve the understanding of policy effectiveness by developing a science-to-practice approach to high quality evaluations of targeted and population wide programmes.

The Centre is currently involved in guiding the design, implementation and evaluation of a variety of social interventions including a series of childhood interventions, a higher education access programme and a school capital investment programme. The research team also continues to demonstrate its strong expertise in non-experimental research by using early childhood cohort studies from the US, UK and Ireland to analyse issues such as child health, education, parental investment, childhood obesity and mental health.  

More details of our research programmes are available here.