Dr Camila Devis-Rozental reflects on how imposter syndrome can create barriers for researchers wanting to engage in policy impact.

In this blog, Mark Reed, Gavin Stewart, Anthonia James and Ged Hall describe a programme that delivered evidence syntheses and policy briefs for a fraction of the cost of a typical systematic review, whilst building evidence synthesis skills among early career researchers.

The Open University is a unique player in the Higher Education environment, and builds on its partnerships to engage policy makers and the policy agenda

In the last few decades, there has been an increase in migration and displacement in several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). While the focus has been on migration across the Sahara and subsequently towards Europe through several channels including the Mediterranean Sea, research has shown that this form of migration accounts for less than 15% of total migration. Due to factors such as cost of the journey, potential risks, and connections abroad, most migration occurs within individual countries or regionally. A large percentage of these internal migrations are often ‘forced’ and could be classified as internal displacement.

Types of public engagement matter if we wish to improve lives

In a blog I wrote for Wonkhe to coincide with the launch of the University of Nottingham’s Institute for Policy and Engagement back in October 2019 (hard to imagine that we had an actual, physical launch – with people, canapés, drinks and no sticky mute buttons or intermittent broadband connections to spoil the fun) I explored how the two parts of the Institute’s remit – policy impact and public engagement – connected and had the potential to reinforce one another.

This research tried to address some of the biggest challenges in my field of social psychology and behavioural science: connecting individual behaviours with large scale political and societal developments while using rigorous experimental research methods. It’s by no means perfect, but some of the best we can offer in behavioural research and it has important implications for policy makers and educators alike.

Incoming Policy Fellowships are one example of academic-policy engagement fellowship schemes. They can be effective ways for promoting knowledge exchange, networking, and professional development. The Centre for Science and Policy (University of Cambridge) has been offering Incoming Policy Fellowships for over 10 years and has, in collaboration with the CAPE consortium, collected some learning points.

In a ground-breaking Knowledge Exchange collaboration between academics and young creatives, researchers from the University of Hull have been working with the National Youth Theatre to create a powerful, site-specific response to the climate crisis for COP26.

How do you get colleagues to recognise their broad skills and knowledge based and to translate it beyond academia?

Before we engage actively with policymakers and politicians, we need to understand our own position. What’s our starting point? How have contemporary issues and events affected our work? What policies are needed to ameliorate the bad and reinforce the good?

At the onset of a research project or programme, engaging with policymakers can be a daunting challenge. But careful planning at the research proposal writing stage and nourishing strategic partnerships can make engagement with policymakers the foundation for achieving impact. After all, policymaker buy-in and knowledge is essential for promoting sustainability and embedding the intervention.

Professor Nishan Canagarajah explains why it is vital to drive forward EDI initiatives in HE in order to influence change both outside and within universities.

Dr John Boswell and Gareth Giles from the University of Southampton explore the role of the 'boundary spanner' in academic policy engagement.

Read Lisa's journey as she tries to understand the complex issues around the diversity in contributions to public policy initiatives and the importance of Parliaments and Governments in hearing from more diverse voices to better represent a wider range of views and population. How she has learnt that more needs to be done and how this is not just an issue for public policy engagement.

The UK Aid sector has faced unprecedented challenges over the last 18 months due to the global Covid-19 pandemic, reduction in funding, and shake up of the politics and policy driving development. Constant throughout all the debates and changes has been the importance of quality evidence and learning to enhance development impact. But how can this take place in an organisation such as the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)? Put simply, what works?

People recover from even the most horrendous addictions. And we now understand the process of how they do it. CHIME – (positive) Connections generate Hope that creates a virtuous circle of a new and valued Identity that leads to engagement in Meaningful activities and a sense of Empowerment. Since 2010, this has been recognised in policy but translating that recognition to action has been much more challenging.

The former Head of Global Projects and Policy at Queen Mary University of London reflects on a career in academic-policy engagement and the benefits of avoiding 'group think'

The levelling-up agenda is central to current government policy. This blog considers how researchers can make the most of this.

In this blog Dr Hayley Bennett (University of Edinburgh) and Dr Sarah Weakley (University of Glasgow and Policy Scotland), reflect on their work supporting a Parliamentary inquiry into multi-level ‘welfare’, including identifying evidence, unpicking complexity, and developing recommendations.

Universities need to remember that the projects that they develop are not just demonstrating that projects are feasible at a technical or economic scale but are sensitive to the needs of the communities that these developments serve and ensure that are socially inclusive.

Efforts are being made at Westminster to open up the UK Parliament to a wider range of public voices, including a more representative selection of academic researchers. So what can universities and Parliament do to encourage a more diverse range of academics to engage? UPEN decided to carry out a survey of university academics and researchers to find out.

Welsh Parliament Academic Fellowships give researchers an important voice in policymaking and offer an opportunity to get your research on the desks of key stakeholders who contribute to government policy formation.

Sustainable development is core to Welsh universities’ civic mission and the new Civic Mission Framework supports universities to demonstrate their actions for the purpose of promoting or improving the economic, social, environmental or cultural well-being of Wales and beyond.

Never before in modern history has there been a stronger demonstration of evidence based politics than in the current Covid-19 situation. The pandemic delivers the right momentum in the policy and political realm to implement long lasting ambitions for structuring evidence informed policies or to generate new ones. When doing so, it is highly instrumental to make use of ambitious new initiatives in different parts of the world.

The mission of the recently launched Research Centre for Health (ReaCH) at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) is to reach out to communities to make a positive difference to the quality of people’s lives in Scotland and around the world through research excellence in managing public health and long-term conditions.

As the COP26 climate summit draws nearer, Alyssa Gilbert from the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London explores how the COP26 Universities Network builds relationships between academics and policymakers to make the summit a success for action on climate change.

On the eve of the Local and Combined Authority Mayoral elections in the UK, Michael Taylor at Manchester Metropolitan University looks at the role Metro Mayors play and how universities can engage with them

Justin Fisher is Professor of Political Science and Director of Brunel Public Policy at Brunel University London. In this blog he looks at how engaging with policy-makers and legislators is hugely rewarding, but requires a slightly different way of working.

As UPEN transitions to the University of Sheffield, UPEN welcomes the new network manager, Alex Clegg, to the team! Alex joined UPEN on the 12th of April on three-days a week (Monday-Wednesday). We catch up with Alex to find out a bit more about the colleague who will be helping to shape UPEN over the next couple of years.

Annette Boaz and Kathryn Oliver are social scientists with expertise in production and use of evidence for, policy. In this blogpost, they reflect on their recent experiences putting their knowledge into practice at the heart of government during a national lockdown.

In this interview, Grantham Scholar Gloria Mensah explains why scientists (and engineers) should think like policy makers. Further she explains how her research into the rise and fall of CCUS on the UK government’s agenda reveals lessons for all sustainability researchers.

The University of Cambridge’s Alice Millington reviews the insights into resilience shared by Policy Fellows of the Centre for Science and Policy.

Durham University's Dr Petra Minnerop discuses the importance of policy and public engagement, within and across states, in the lead up to COP 26.

The Norwich Good Economy Commission is a new two-year collaborative project through which the University of East Anglia and Norwich City Council are creating the space to explore what a good city economy might look like, and what steps could be made to get there.

Dr Arlene Holmes-Henderson is a Classicist at the University of Oxford where she leads a project which investigates the impact of learning Classical languages on children’s cognitive development.

Matt Francis, Public Affairs Manager, reflects on the development of policy engagement activity at the University of Stirling.

The University of Huddersfield's Andy Mycock discusses place-based policy engagement as the region looks to elect its first metro mayor in May 2021.

UPEN's upcoming Chair (2021-2023) reflects on the role of UPEN and it's priorities going forward.

In this post, Raj Patel outlines three types of challenging problems and argues that longitudinal studies can play an important role in addressing them.

Euan Adie, founder of Overton.io, discusses how the platform can help universities measure and track the policy impact of their research.

The University of Hull reflect on how The Humber is paving the way for the UK's green industrial revolution - through harnessing its research excellence, strategic location and engagements with industry stakeholders.

In this blog, the Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team from the University of Edinburgh share learning and discussion points from an internal learning event on Engaging with Policymakers Internationally.

The government’s beleaguered Covid-19 NHS app hit the headlines again recently after the Sunday Times revealed exclusively that it failed to send alerts to thousands of people to tell them to self-isolate after coming into contact with infected people.

The authors reflect on India's new National Education Policy, what this means for young children, and the new ways of learning required to ensure it's success.

In order to address the complex issues of today, Manchester Metropolitan University's Policy Evaluation and Research Unit Director, Professor Chris Fox, suggests that futures thinking should be at the heart of policy design.

Kingston University reflect on the GO-Science Covid-19 ARI call, and why there was less engagement from the Arts and Humanities than other disciplines.

The London School of Economics discuss how they've supported vital coronavirus-related research in the social sciences to better inform policy.

How the pandemic is bringing equality questions to the foreground in academic-policy engagement.

How do we know if academic-policy mechanisms are working? And what can be done to ensure thatknowledge exchange brokers are valued in the process? CAPE outline their thoughts below.

What happens when a civil servant and an academic trade places?

In this piece I’ll draw upon international comparisons to better understand how different nations have addressed the challenges of coronavirus.

As an institution which has a presence in all the Nations, The Open University has unique opportunities to engage with policy makers across the UK as part of its knowledge exchange and impact portfolio.

UPEN’s mission is admirable, but it also has the potential to be truly transformative.

In his essay, ‘On justice, and how to know it is there’, the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman remarked: “It is in times of crisis that the routine, daily, perpetual and habitual distribution of privileges and deprivations is abruptly recast as ‘extraordinary’, a fatal accident, emergency – and so brutally drawn to the surface and brought into dazzling light for everyone to see.”

There could hardly be a more apposite time to be talking about resilience.

Following the recommendation of the Sir Paul Nurse review in 2014, the UK Government launched an innovative mechanism to make it clearer to the outside world what their long-term thinking is, and what research they’d like to engage with. These are now Government’s Areas of Research Interest (ARI).

Policy has focused on gathering evidence and insights from the more technical disciplines. Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) research has often been overlooked as an evidence base, especially within energy policy making.

Snowball effects have great value in policy influence.

The Forum, Imperial’s policy engagement programme, connects Imperial researchers with policymakers. This has been no different during the lockdown and The Forum has been helping researchers to ensure that their latest findings reach policymakers.

Lockdown due to the Covid-19 global pandemic has had far reaching consequences for life as we know it.

To coincide with the Scottish Policy & Research Exchange’s first AGM, its director Nick Bibby reflects on what has been achieved and the lessons learned along the way.

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) form an ‘integrated and indivisible’ framework of goals and targets to guide all countries towards a sustainable and just future.

Michael Gove famously said in 2016 that ‘people in this country have had enough of experts’, and with social media ‘bubbles’, fake news, and the media desire to present opposing viewpoints – however marginal - it can often feel this way.

Despite decades of protests and raising awareness, carbon emissions have continued to increase steadily.

Let’s not beat about the bush, the last few months have been challenging.

The authors have recently published the report, Evaluating academic engagement with UK legislatures, a project which is funded by the ESRC IAA and supported by the UK's four legislatures.

An Early Day Motion was recently laid in the UK Parliament calling for:

This week, the Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN) publishes its first report, looking at how universities can use the “Areas of Research Interest” statements published by UK government Departments to strengthen the evidence base for policy decision making.

Impact assessment regimes are largely a-spatial, in that they assume that the academics they assess have equal access and opportunities to influence at different scales (e.g. local, regional, national, international etc) regardless of where they are located. Taking the example of Northern Ireland, Dr Vanessa Gstrein and Maria Prince explore how the lack of a functioning government has limited the role that research focused on Northern Ireland can play in developing public policy in the province and the implications this has for universities in Northern Ireland, who have to compete for research funding with other universities in the UK.

We are starting a new decade with a new government and fresh debate about what skills the civil service needs. One angle on this debate is about how best to answer the age-old question of “What makes effective policy?”

As a society we face some big challenges. Take your pick from a list that includes climate change, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, an ageing population, urbanisation and the growth of cities, and the rise of populism.

When policy makers have needed expertise in the past they have always been able to get it.

For decades, UK governments have used the phrase ‘prevention is better than cure’ to describe a new direction in policy and policymaking.

As relative newcomer to the higher education sector it’s a privilege to work more closely with leading researchers whose evidence is making a difference. Policy engagement initiatives within UK universities are clearly making strides in facilitating the formation of evidence-based policy in local and national government.

There is a tremendous thirst amongst policymakers to make better use of academic research says Stephen Aldridge, Director for Analysis and Data at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

My favourite metaphor for diversity is one of a toolbox.

For anyone who has worked in or on policy engagement, the image of the furiously busy policymaker will be all too familiar.

I am still relatively new to my role as Director of Public Affairs at Durham University, having joined at the beginning of October. Prior to that my career has been predominantly in the corporate consultancy world, working with national and international companies, as well as some NHS Trusts and HE institutions for good measure.

Jack O’Sullivan argues that new think tanks and policy institutes should widen their mission – to embed interdisciplinary thinking about research.

At the Wales Centre for Public Policy (WCPP), we are continually reflecting upon our role as a ‘knowledge brokerage organisation’ (KBO). We see ‘knowledge brokerage’ as the practice of connecting researchers and decision makers to help inform public policy and professional practice. Although knowledge brokerage has great potential, we also recognise the complexity inherent in our work.

This has been an extremely exciting few months for Policy at Strathclyde where we have been working on a wide range of programmes that aim to support and enhance policy making in Scotland, the wider UK and beyond.

Vian Bakir and Andrew McStay regularly engage with policy-makers in the digital media field, under the auspices of the Network for Study of Media & Persuasive Communication and the Emotional AI lab.

As I write this blog, the impact and realisation of climate change becomes ever more apparent. Amid Brexit, climate change dominates the news – from the recent Queen’s Speech to Extinction Rebellion protests across the country.

'The Future is in Our Lands’ is a new public event series which will address issues around the future of UK land and farming, sustainable food production, and the protection of our ecosystems.

Like most of those reading this blog, the Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP) at the University of Cambridge has spent a fair amount of time considering and trialling methods of brokering relations between academics and policy makers.

There are clear benefits for academics who engage with the media to publicise their research and expertise. By learning how to explain their research to new audiences, they improve their communication skills and boost their personal profiles and that of their university.

The 'impact' agenda has prompted many academics and organisations to recommend how to use research to influence policy and practice. In this post, Paul Cairney and Kathryn Oliver reflect on the value of this advice and warn against taking it too firmly to heart. The post trails their forthcoming contribution to 'UoN Engaged', hosted at the University of Nottingham on the 17th of September.

UPEN has formally existed for barely a year, and yet done a huge amount. And for that Gavin Costigan, the founding and outgoing Chair, deserves huge plaudits.

In the summer of 2018, I was exchanging emails with colleagues in policy brokerage roles across a number of universities. There had been an informal network of us for a year or two, which had met from time to time, but had no formal structure or specific plans. Yet when I mentioned this putative network to contacts in Government, several were excited and keen to attend meetings. The question I provoked last summer was: Is this the time to develop and agree a formalised network?

As a Clinical Neuropsychologist I am interested in how the brain works, and what happens when people have injuries to the brain - from assaults, car accidents and falls and such like. Most injuries are “mild” – often thought of as “concussion” - but some – around 20% - are significant – with changes to the brain – and mind – that lasts a lifetime. The changes are typically in parts of the brain that allows people to remember, to plan ahead and to follow that plan (remember!). But also – importantly – to manage emotions. To rein ourselves in. How would it be if we acted on an impulse?

The Wales Centre for Public Policy works with leading policy experts to provide Ministers, the civil service and public services in Wales with independent and authoritative evidence and expertise. It also conducts research on the processes and practices of policy-making and evidence use to contribute to knowledge and inform its own ways of working.

As universities seek to up their game with respect to policy engagement, a range of proactive and reactive strategies, alongside associated processes, have arisen within Higher Education. Both forms of strategy are bound up in the dynamics of a sector that is geared towards sharing best practice, yet at the same time attuned to the increasingly competitive dynamics that characterise the university research funding landscape.

Like many similar units, the Policy Institute is primarily concerned with producing academically rigorous solutions to policy challenges. But in addition to research, we’re also passionate about working with students, partly to help develop those solutions, but also to add to their experience of King’s, and ultimately their employability and personal development.

Entrepreneurial engagement with Zinc’s programme of missions show how the private sector can draw on social science research to tackle pressing societal issues that policy makers are looking to solve. The programme, supported by the ASPECT initiative, is currently looking at a third mission around the topic of ageing writes Megan Marsh, Public Affairs Officer at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

While national Government has an ever increasing amount of support available for policymaking, it’s important not to leave local and regional policymakers out when it comes to providing scientific advice.

There is a common and persistent belief out there that entrepreneurship is about creativity - that it's about having a great idea. But it's not, really. Entrepreneurship isn't about creativity. It's about organization-building - which, in turn, is about people.Andrew Yang

Shaping Futures grew out of a tradition of housing research at the University of Glasgow and, supported by the universities of New South Wales and Toronto, it developed into an international collaborative partnership of 17 non-profit housing providers, cities and government agencies. It exchanged and produced knowledge in three face-to-face meetings to plan and progress joint-working over three years about housing processes, problems and policies in Australia, Britain and Canada (ABC countries).

Supporting academics across the University of Bristol to achieve policy impact from their research is a diverse and fascinating job. In the process of doing this, our team at PolicyBristol is constantly learning about new topics; from the value of NHS managers to refugee rights, enhancing peace processes to the role of universities. Although each project uses a bespoke approach, this can be summarised under the following key principles for engagement which we refer to as the ‘five Ts’:

Blogs can be a useful tool to reach policymakers, says Nick Bibby of the Scottish Policy and Research Exchange, and can be made all the more effective by following a few simple guidelines.

As the number of children living in poverty grows, academic research is informing a UK-wide, cross-party inquiry on how we can ensure that children get the nourishment they need. Its report will be launched in Westminster on 25th April 2019.

The Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP) is part of the University of Cambridge and its mission is to improve public policy through the more effective use of evidence and expertise. We do this by creating opportunities for public policy professionals and academics to learn from each other. Since CSaP was founded in July 2009, we’ve learnt a few things! So, in anticipation of CSaP’s 10th anniversary, we thought we’d share ten lessons from our journey.

As Head of UCL Public Policy, I lead UCL’s institutional initiative to support academic-policy engagement. I haven’t always had this role and reflecting back on my career to date, I have been on a journey of discovery to get there.

Much has changed since my 2017 blog on engaging with policymakers. Brexit dominating the policy landscape has impacted both international and domestic agendas, often limiting opportunities to get research seen and heard by decision makers. However new developments are starting to take shape, helping to feed more scientific evidence into policy. I explore some of these here, highlighting a few examples of the routes I have taken over the past year.

There is (probably) no greater nor more topical example of the complexity of policymaking than Brexit. As has been evident over the last two years – which culminated in a fascinating series of Parliamentary votes last week – policymaking is far from a discrete one-off decision, but rather a complex non-linear process that involves a multitude of actors and forces, both inside and outside Parliament, operating at multiple levels.

Whenever I tell people that I work at a university, their first question is usually: What do I teach? Even amongst people who know the complexity of university structures and the vast number of roles that exist across Professional Services, explaining what a public policy team does is not straightforward – because we are still the new kids on the block within higher education institutes. So as I look back at the last three years at the work of the public policy team in Southampton since its establishment as a cross-university unit in 2016, it’s worth reflecting – what have we actually achieved?

The ambitions in the Industrial Strategy are lofty and far reaching.

Essentially, the role of Government Chief Scientific Adviser (GCSA) is to ensure that the Prime Minister and the government have advice based on world-leading science, and that policies and decisions are informed by scientific evidence and strategic long-term thinking.

We are all living longer; since 1850, we’ve gained around 2.5 years of life expectancy per decade and it’s estimated that one in three children born today will live to be 100 years old. In Europe there is one retiree for every four people of working age, by 2060 this is expected to rise to one in two.

Evidence-based policy ensures that the best interventions are effectively implemented. Integrating rigorous, relevant science into policy is therefore essential. Barriers include the evidence not being there; lack of demand by policymakers; academics not producing rigorous, relevant papers within the timeframe of the policy cycle. This piece addresses the last problem.

The final guidance for REF2021 was released this week. Most of the guidance on impact is consistent with what I expected from the consultation. For the full guidance on the submission of impact case studies to REF2021 see pages 68-76 of the and do a keyword search for “impact” to find any specific guidance for your Main Panel or Unit of Assessment in the Panel Criteria and Working Methods.

Progress to open access has stalled. After two decades of trying, the proportion of born-free articles is stuck at 20%. Kicking off the Impact Blog’s Open Access Week coverage, Toby Green suggests the solution to our financially unsustainable scholarly publishing system may lie in rethinking traditional processes using internet-era norms. Embracing the principle of “fail fast”, all papers should first be published as freely available preprints to test whether they “succeed” or “fail”, with journals then competing to invite authors to publish. This would reduce the costs of the expensive, straining peer review system while ensuring all papers are available to all readers.

Following over 100 pieces of written evidence and oral evidence from 26 witnesses, yesterday the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee published their report on ‘Evidence-based early years intervention’, calling on the Government to draw up a new national strategy for early intervention approaches to address childhood adversity and trauma.

In all the restructuring of higher education in recent years, the primacy of the message about needing to ensure impact from research has remained consistent.