The Harkin Institute for Public Policy & Citizen Engagement is located at Drake University.

We serve as a venue and catalyst for dynamic non-partisan research, learning, and outreach to promote understanding of the policy issues to which Senator Tom Harkin devoted his career.

Improve the lives of all Americans by giving policymakers access to high-quality information and engaging citizens as active participants in the formation of public policy.

A future where everyone has equal access to opportunity, well-being, and dignity.

Advance inclusive, evidence-based public policy by connecting research, civic learning, and diverse lived experiences.

Provide access to trusted information and empower robust civic engagement to promote the public good.

We are inspired by Tom and Ruth Harkin’s decades of public service. They demonstrate that all of us are interconnected, bound together in a single circle of inclusion, with no one left out.

Senator Tom Harkin represented Iowa in the United States Congress for more than four decades. He served Iowa’s 5th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1975 to 1985 and was a U.S. Senator from 1985 to 2015. Sen. Harkin’s legacy policy priorities have included federal farm policy, civil rights for Americans with disabilities, childhood nutrition and food access, healthcare access and reform, labor issues, and access to and improvement of education. He lives in the house where he was born in Cumming, Iowa.