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Ragne Low |
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Dr Nick Kelly 23 April 2018 |
Strathclyde’s Energy Theme brings together researchers from across faculties and disciplines to address the many energy challenges faced by societies globally. The theme represents one of the largest energy research clusters in Europe. This large expert community has the potential to inform decision making in governments, businesses and communities at a range of scales.
To capitalise on this potential we need to maintain and enhance our ability to generate impact from our research. It was with this end in mind that the Energy Theme held a Policy Impact workshop on 28 March 2018, with 28 researchers from 10 departments and across career stages.
Workshop overview
The workshop opened with a general overview of the policy process and tips for accessing policy makers and generating impact from our research. We then heard from three experienced academics who have had significant success in policy impact – from formal participation in Government expert panels to influencing technology standards at EU level.
To round off, the Director for Energy and Climate Change at the Scottish Government presented a first-hand perspective on how research is actually used by policy makers and how academics can boost the policy impact of their evidence and findings. This blog post summarises the key messages that came out of the workshop.
Getting started with policy impact
Firstly, have the right motivation. Good policy derives from good advice and data: as academics, we can provide both. Get engaged in policy making because you want your expertise to benefit the process, not just to generate impact.
The first steps to getting engaged in policy making and potentially having an impact usually involve making connections between your work and a policy question or challenge. Often this starts through building relationships with people.
A more senior academic might recommend you for an advisory group. You might undertake a short consultancy project for a government department and build trust with the team that commissioned it, which then positions you as the expert who they will pick up the phone to in the future.
You might use your involvement in a large research project to get to know industry networks that in turn are involved in policy making (for example, in standard-setting).
Or you might do a bit of investigation to find out which particular official or government analyst is the right person to engage with for your work – and sometimes that person will be more junior than you might think – and set up an exploratory meeting (over coffee always works well!).
These sorts of approaches, when coupled with a dogged determination to publish your work across a wide range of outlets, tend to work well as a way of getting your foot in the door.
Words of warning
A few words of warning though. Persistence is required: sometimes gaining access to policy communities is more a matter of serendipity than planning. Grabbing opportunities as they present themselves is important.
And if you go down the consultancy project route, be aware that government-funded consultancy projects are usually small budget, admin heavy and have short deadlines. You may need to persuade your seniors that the potential future impact prize is worth it.
Developing your Impact
Establishing initial credibility as an expert voice and building relationships with key people are the key first steps. Developing things from there requires you to maintain a watching brief on the policy space you’re interested in, and being aware that policy making is a messy process that does not work in a linear fashion.
There are multiple and sometimes surprising ways to get your research findings woven into a policy discussion, and depending on your research area, any of the following groups might be interested in using your research:
- non-governmental organisations
- lobbying and campaigning groups
- industry associations
- consumer organisations
- regulators
- local government
- devolved government
- national government departments
- trade and professional associations
- expert and advisory groups
- think tanks
- Parliamentarians
- Select Committees and so on.
And bear in mind that these groups are often constituted differently at local, Scottish, UK and EU level as well as internationally – it may be that the most obvious audience for your research is a local community organisation, or it might be an international body. For some policy areas, it is in fact easier to have impact at the international level than the domestic.
There are a variety of routes to getting your message across. Social media such as Twitter can work well, linking to a longer piece (but make sure it is open access). Traditional media may also be appropriate. Blog posts are particularly effective and you can opt to use your home institution’s blog or to write for external blogs (e.g the Conversation). Longer pieces might take the form of a Policy Brief.
For all of the audiences listed above, and all of the routes just discussed, there are a few critical do’s and don’ts to bear in mind:
Do
- keep it brief, summarising and then summarising again (blog posts are a good way to get short, snappy messages across);
- link in to wider issues, explaining why your research matters in the context of the bigger picture;
- put your key messages up-front and your methodology at the very end, or in an annex (if you need to include it at all);
- present any critique of policy in a constructive way – constructive feedback tends to land much better with Ministers and officials than outright criticism.
Don’t
- focus only on the problem – it is more impactful (and more helpful!) to present potential solutions;
- come across as if you have an axe to grind. Instead be clear that you are ‘in it for the right reasons’;
- write in dense prose – keep sentences short and use plain English, avoiding jargon;
- assume your audience will understand complex charts or equations (again, complex charts and formulae might be best in a technical annex, if they need to be included at all).
How the Energy Theme can help
The Energy Theme has resources available to support your policy work, with the Centre for Energy Policy a further source of policy knowledge that you can draw upon. Contact the Energy Theme to see how we can help. The Theme will be expanding our programme of activities, so keep an eye out for further workshops and knowledge sharing opportunities.
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