SSI held a practicum workshop today, focusing on briefing strategies for its SSI Junior Fellows ahead of the Capstone Event to be held on June 8, 2016.
Throughout 2015-2016 academic year, the seven SSI Junior Fellows—area specialists from the Ph.D. Program at the Jackson School—went through training exercises, policy writing, and briefing sessions. Starting in April 2016, the SSI Junior Fellows began posting policy briefs on the space policy trajectories of present and rising major powers around the world, namely China, India, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Israel, the European Union, and the United States.
The workshop today focused on practical training in preparation for the final event of this year—the SSI Capstone Event, where SSI Junior Fellows will brief prominent space-related stakeholders in the Pacific Northwest, bringing together networks from the academic, media, government, military, and business spheres.
Dr. Saadia Pekkanen, director of SSI, provided suggestions on how to formulate an efficient and concise briefing. “Given limited time, it is important to keep in mind the worldview of space stakeholders, and what they might find useful from their different public and private sector backgrounds. They know a lot about space. Think about what you are adding to that.”
In the session, she commented that the SSI Junior Fellows had considerable area expertise in regions of the world where not much is known about space realities. “That is your real value added here as you think of how best to brief a diverse set of knowledgeable space stakeholders in the Pacific Northwest.” For the briefing, she suggested that the Junior Fellows use their own specialist knowledge to highlight the current situation, critical trends, and potential projections related to space affairs in their respective regions.
In the workshop, each Junior Fellow then conducted a three-minute mock briefing on their region of specialty.
