We are pleased to announce the Call for Presentations for the 4th GRIPS Student Conference, to be held on Wednesday, September 2, 2015 at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS), Tokyo. This year's theme is "Public Policy, Innovation and Development".

Conference Objectives
GRIPS has been hosting the GRIPS Student Conference since 2012. The Conference brings together a diverse group of students, researchers, and professionals from various disciplines and backgrounds to share ideas and research findings on political, social, and economic challenges facing the world today and to discuss how these challenges can be addressed for sustainable development.

This year, we look at the interplay of public policy, innovation and development as major issues facing developed and emerging market economies worldwide.
Historically, innovation has played a central role in enabling and scaling up economic development and has been a major driver of economic growth. How to foster innovation is hence one of the crucial tasks of today's policy-makers, who look for tools and ideas to confront issues like climate change, poverty reduction and the improvement of social welfare. We invite policy-oriented papers that discuss the role of innovation within research and learning outcomes, and its use towards these goals. We explicitly encourage inter-disciplinary approaches that span economics, political sciences, history or other social or natural sciences in theoretical or applied ways.

The conference is open to all GRIPS and non-GRIPS students, researchers, and professionals, and it provides an excellent opportunity for young as well as established researchers to share expertise in important policy areas, contribute to existing scholarship, and expand their network of colleagues and collaborators.

Call for Presentations
We invite both empirical and conceptual papers on any issue in economics, political science, and social policy that is relevant to the conference theme.
Presenters will have 25 minutes to present and answer questions. The official language of the conference is English.

Guidelines for Registration and Abstract Submission If you would like to present a paper at the 4th GRIPS Student Conference, we kindly ask that you pre-register online (http://bit.ly/1HA8zDZ) or send an email to studentconference@grips.ac.jp by Friday, July 31, 2015, with your tentative presentation title. An abstract of 200-300 words should be submitted by Friday, August 14, 2015. All abstracts must include a title, author(s)' name(s), affiliation, and e-mail, and 3-5 keywords. The abstract should describe the theme of the paper and the theory and research method used, and give a summary of the main conclusions.
Authors whose abstracts have been accepted will be notified by e-mail before Friday, August 21, 2015.
Presenter whose papers have been accepted should send their presentation slides to the Organizing Committee by e-mail no later than Friday, August 28, 2015.

Deadlines
Preregistration (including title), Friday, July 31,
2015
Submission of abstracts for review, Friday, August 7,
2015
Authors are notified of their status, Friday, August 21, 2015 Submission of presentation slides, Friday, August 28,
2015

Correspondence
Inquiries, abstracts and presentation slides should be e-mailed to studentconference@grips.ac.jp

Please check further info and latest updates at:
http://www.grips.ac.jp/en/events/20150710-3340/

Venue
National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) Seminar Rooms 1ABC (1F)
7-22-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-8677