Original research, literature reviews, and evidence‑based analysis — from primary sources to publishable briefs that hold up under citation.
The Research Route is for members who want to produce citable, evidence‑based work. We treat research as a craft — slow reading, careful sourcing, and a refusal to let a good sentence stand in for a missing data point.
Over sixteen weeks you will learn how primary and secondary sources are actually combined into a policy argument, choose a question that fits your time budget, and ship a paper that another researcher can build on. Every member is paired with a senior advisor and a peer reviewer.
Async readings, weekly drops, and three advisor sessions across the cohort. Modules build toward the capstone — there is no busywork, and there is no skipping.
Where evidence sits in the policy cycle. The difference between a position, a paper, and a brief. How to read a literature review against its own assumptions. Picking a question small enough to finish.
Survey design, semi‑structured interviews, descriptive statistics, and the ethics of each. We do not require quant skills — we require that you know which method your question deserves.
Argument structure for non‑academic readers. Caveats and confidence intervals in plain English. Visualising a finding without overstating it. Writing the executive summary last, on purpose.
Two drafts. One advisor session per draft. A blinded peer review with another fellow. A public‑facing version and an academic‑facing version of the same finding.
Every route ends in one Capstone with your name on it — published, archived, and citable. No certificate without it.
Single‑author byline, peer‑reviewed by senior advisors before publication on the YSP research hub.
A good paper is one a tired civil servant could read on the bus and change one slide of their next deck.
A handful of recent capstones from the Research Route — to give you a sense of the scope and shape we expect, not to tell you what to write.
No route is harder than another — they reward different temperaments. Here is who tends to thrive in Research, and who is probably better served elsewhere.
Every member is paired with a senior advisor. The names below are representative of the Research Route advisor bench across recent cohorts.
15+ years across regional policy. Reads two drafts and runs a 60‑minute session with each advisee.
Currently serving in government, an NGO, or a research institute. Brings a live sense of what is plausible this year.
Blinded review of your draft, paired by the programme team. You will be a peer reviewer for someone in turn — that is part of the work.
↗ The full advisor bench is listed on the Team page.
If your question is not here, write to us. We read everything.
Email us ▸No. We teach you which questions need quant and which do not. You will leave able to read a regression table critically; you will not leave able to run one from scratch.
Yes. Roughly a third of Research Route capstones are two‑author. Co‑authors share a single advisor and submit one joint draft per round.
Expected. Your Week 4 question rarely survives contact with Week 8's evidence. We rescope formally at the Week 8 advisor session.
Capstones that pass advisor review are published on the YSP research hub under your byline, with a permanent URL and DOI.
Members usually arrive certain about one route and leave curious about the next. Each route is sixteen weeks; some fellows have done two over consecutive cohorts.
Express interest for the next cohort. We open intakes four times a year and you can roll your application forward at any time — no penalty, no fee.