The Reformist Bootcamp: why unlearning is the first step to take by the next generation of policy professionals

Across Indonesian ministries, subnational governments, state-owned enterprises, and other institutions, many professionals already understand that some of the ways policies are designed and implemented are no longer sufficient for increasingly complex challenges. Issues such as climate adaptation, food systems, and demographic transition cannot always be addressed through linear plans or conventional solutions. They require policymakers to work across sectors, question assumptions, respond to uncertainty, and adapt as new information emerges.

Yet bringing evidence and new ideas into practice can be difficult within a bureaucratic system that has, over time, developed a risk-averse culture. Innovation is not always rewarded, while performance indicators can be less legible than in the private sector. Policy priorities can also be determined from the top, leaving limited room for participatory or iterative approaches. The result is a gap between knowing that change is needed and feeling able to make that change happen.

For professionals with high agency, this can be particularly discouraging. When institutional incentives to experiment are weak and the risks of doing something differently are more visible than the benefits, reform-minded individuals can quickly lose momentum.

Existing pathways to developing a different paradigm also tend to come with high barriers. A master’s degree, professional certification, or long-term apprenticeship can provide valuable learning, but requires significant investments of time and money.

This created an opportunity for a different kind of learning intervention: one that does not simply teach professionals more technical knowledge, but helps them question existing assumptions, practice new ways of working, and build the relationships needed to keep acting when they return to their desks.

This is the premise behind The Reformist Bootcamp, Think Policy’s flagship program for public servants and professionals. Rather than treating participants as people who simply need more knowledge, the program starts from the belief that many potential reformers are already inside the system. What they need is the momentum and allies to turn conviction into institutional practice.

The Reformist Bootcamp is designed around a simple premise: changing institutions starts with changing how the people inside them think and act. To do that, the program combines three approaches.

Reformists rarely need new information first. Before introducing another policy framework or technical tool, the Bootcamp creates space for participants to examine the assumptions, biases, and beliefs that shape how they understand a problem.

The curriculum is organized around questions that reformers encounter in practice: What beliefs make us do what we do? Who holds influence over an issue, and when? How do we check our assumptions when designing a policy program? And how do we lead when we have limited formal authority?

Modules move between inner work — such as agency, bias, and ego — and outer work, including systems thinking, influence, storytelling, program design, budgeting, and innovation. This helps participants approach policy problems differently before applying new technical tools.

Unlike self-paced courses or conventional technical training, the Bootcamp is deliberately designed around high-touch andragogy: adult learning through direct engagement, discussion, experimentation, and feedback.

Participants work closely with instructors, mentors, and peers while connecting the frameworks they learn to problems they encounter in their own institutions. This makes the learning process more than an exercise in acquiring knowledge — it gives participants an opportunity to test new ways of thinking against the realities of their work.

The approach has produced an average 43% increase in core knowledge and 22% increase in core competencies, including critical thinking, empathy, and problem solving. More importantly, the program measures efficacy to change: participants’ confidence that they can push for change once they return to their institutions. Across cohorts, this increased by an average of 13% — a smaller gain, but arguably the more difficult outcome to shift.

Even when individuals have the capability and motivation to change, institutional reform rarely happens alone. It requires allies who can provide alternative perspectives, share information, open doors, and sustain momentum when change becomes difficult.

The Bootcamp treats its alumni community as part of the intervention itself. Across approximately 450 alumni from 275 institutions, participants have built relationships across central and subnational government, civil society, academia, the private sector, state-owned enterprises, intergovernmental organizations, and political parties. For some, that network becomes a practical source of opportunities and support beyond the program.

The combination of frameworks, practical application, and community means the program’s impact does not have to end when a cohort finishes. The learning travels with participants back into their institutions, where it can influence how problems are understood, how solutions are designed, and how reform is pursued.

The Reformist Bootcamp’s impact is not simply measured by how many professionals it has trained. Its more significant test is what alumni do with what they have learned once they return to their own working environments. Three levels of change have begun to emerge.

One example came from Pohuwato Regency in Gorontalo Province, where an alumnus of Think Policy’s local legislator fellowship helped push for a regional regulation (Perda) on data-based local governance. Passed by the regional legislature at its 29th plenary session in December 2025, the regulation uses more precise village and sub-district data to support local governance.

In agriculture, Ridho — an alumnus from the Ministry of Agriculture’s tenth Bootcamp cohort — applied tools from the program with his team to develop climate-based planting calendars and emissions projections. The work won first prize at a KOICA short course in South Korea and helped unlock funding for farmer development and climate resilience. He describes the training as changing how he approaches “super-wicked” challenges: not as abstract problems too complex to solve, but as systems that could be worked through.

A third example is inside the Ministry of National Development Planning (Bappenas). Alumni Prita, Fikri, and Riski, who participated in different cohorts, helped initiate Bappenas Muda under the Allstar Bappenas community — a space for younger professionals to nurture internal champions and experiment with more adaptive approaches to development planning.

These examples show why reach alone is not the same as scale. A program does not create systemic change simply by training more people. In a complex policymaking ecosystem, change compounds when individuals carry new capabilities into their institutions, find allies who share their ambition, and create new practices that others can adopt.