The HESE Policy Lab designs creative policy solutions across three interconnected domains:

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• Health – reducing inequalities, improving mental and physical wellbeing, and addressing the social determinants of health;

• Environment – promoting sustainable local environments, increasing access to green and blue spaces, and advancing environmental justice; and

• Social Equity – tackling systemic inequalities, ensuring fair access to opportunities and resources, and amplifying community voices in policy design.

 

We test solutions with scientific rigor and scale only those interventions that demonstrate clear effectiveness—maximizing public benefit. Ineffective interventions are discontinued, and lessons from failure are systematically integrated into future policy and research.

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The Lab was established to address a critical gap in the China and Asia policy environment: a need for academically rigorous experimental and quasi-experimental evaluations with an explicit focus on causal inference for policy design. Our ultimate aim is to generate robust evidence on what works—and what does not—to improve lives across China, the Asia-Pacific region, and beyond.