The International Economic Development Program fosters advanced professionals and researchers who can contribute creatively and collaboratively to development policy planning, implementations, evaluations and improvements towards promotion of sustainable development goals, through acquisition of global perspectives, and knowledge and skills necessary in evidence-based interdisciplinary social science.

The art and science of policy making is entering into a new era. The paradigm shift is upgrading the process of policy making and its impact evaluation from a personal-experience-based subjective approach to a more objective, evidence-based one.
Evidence-based decision making does not merely mean the utilization of data; rather, it explicitly prohibits doing so, by acknowledging the wisdom that what our data shows in front of our eyes is just the correlation, and not the causation that we need to base our decision.
The fact that “people with higher education enjoy higher income” does not imply “promoting higher education promotes income growth.”
The fact that “countries with higher child birth rates face higher poverty” does not imply “suppressing child birth reduces poverty.”
The fact that “cities with better sewage have better child health” does not imply “better sewage improves child health.”
If we want to know the impact of the policy to tackle these problems, we must find the truth hidden behind the observed data.
The art of science of finding the truth in this way is the evidence-based decision making that we offer.

In order to tackle various development issues such as economic development, environmental conservation, poverty alleviation, and urban/rural dynamics, The International Economic Development Program provides the systematic curriculum to cultivate abilities for identifying/targeting issues, applied analysis, policy proposals that can link advanced social science methods to practical problem solving. Additionally, this program offers learning and training opportunities to develop professional communication skills to work with diverse stakeholders and leadership in problem solving.