McCourt School of Public Policy
Massive Data Institute
Massive Data Institute

Inter-Branch Exchange

The Inter-Branch Exchange (IBE) is a series of in-person working sessions where government officials, academics, and non-profit leaders discuss the challenges of administering, monitoring, and evaluating programs that our communities rely on.

Data are central to IBE discussions. Programs need to understand their eligible populations, collect and safeguard client data, access data held by employers and other agencies to confirm eligibility, and analyze data to monitor trends and outcomes. In these ways, and many more, data are deeply intertwined with policy.

By surfacing data challenges and hearing about solutions from experts across the country, IBE aims to improve inter-branch collaborations. Specifically, we hope that IBE conversations result in policies and regulations aligning to service-delivery and understanding outcomes of programs and services.

The Inter-Branch Exchange is part of the Massive Data Institute’s Place-Based Indicators Project (new window), supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. To contact us about the project, please email pbi@georgetown.edu (new window). You can also learn more about our work on the Massive Data Institute’s Medium page (new window).

Past Events

On March 11, 2024, IBE held a forum to identify opportunities for standardizing data from paid leave programs and how to use that data to improve technical implementation, program evaluation, and oversight. Participants from the legislative branch, digital service delivery, and data and evidence-based policy organizations discussed state experiences with paid leave programs and how claims data can be used to assess the impact of these programs and share lessons learned.

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On November 16, 2023, IBE held a forum that explored data challenges around the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the federal government’s largest food assistance program. SNAP generates massive amounts of data that could be used to improve the program, increase enrollment, support valuable research beyond SNAP, and inform legislative decisionmaking around related policies and programs, but data quality and access challenges prevent this from happening. Participants from the legislative branch, the digital service industry, the benefit delivery sector, and data and evidence-based policy organizations discussed these challenges and how to make SNAP data more fully accessible. 

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Travel Reimbursement

If you have attended one of our IBE events and have questions about travel reimbursement, reach out to Ben Harris at ben@popvox.org.