Our PolicyWISE Training Day with Open Societal Challenges

By Lucy Adams

 

This September, I started my internship with PolicyWISE, hoping to learn about the policy world and how research fits within it. To my surprise, I have found researchers often stay at an arms-length from policy - is policy impact really that hard to achieve? All my questions were answered at our recent training event.

On October 24th, PolicyWISE held a successful training day with Open Societal Challenges at The Open University in Milton Keynes. The hybrid-event lead academic experts on a guided tour of the parliaments and governments of the UK and Ireland. The core aim of the day was to discuss avenues for policy impact and identify how academics can engage with policy through their research.

Our Director, Dewi Knight, started by laying out the mechanics of parliaments and governments, highlighting that policy comes in myriad shapes and sizes. Impact is not limited to a single channel of opportunity within the Westminster parliament. Policymaking happens every day, on many scales, and in every nation of the UK and Ireland.

We heard about the importance of ‘keeping the ball rolling’ with Senior External Affairs and Communications Manager, Catherine May. If the tab is always open on current policy affairs and relationships are watered regularly, then your opportunity to engage with policy is more likely to appear. We spoke about the language of policymakers, and the need for digestible research which accommodates the time-restricted nature of policy work. Our Wise in 5’s are a key example of how policymakers can easily digest complex topics.

Research Associate, Eira Jepson, spoke about broadening perspectives on what impact means. Research impact is often defined by and within the academic world, through things like impact factors, citations and student feedback. As academic researchers, policy is often an afterthought, making it difficult to bend research outcomes to policy needs. But policy influence is not out of reach if it is built into the research process. If research is designed with policy in mind, opportunities for impact and engagement are naturally broader.

In case our attendees weren’t convinced, we had an inside run-down of each parliaments’ inner workings. Our Open University Public Affairs team in Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and England walked us through the various terminology, priorities, and structures of devolved parliaments and governments. This session really highlighted that unique opportunities for impact might be available if researchers look further afield than their closest parliament. A breadth of devolved policy power often leads to varied priorities between parliaments, so timing and readiness for change in every nation is key.

 

My Key Take Aways from the Day:

 

  • Parliaments and Governments – reading up is what many researchers do best and knowing a bit more about the language, structures and priorities of each parliament and government can go a long way for catching the right person at the right time.
  • Plan with Policy in Mind - Don’t let policy needs be an after-thought to your hard work, plan your research with an idea of policy priorities in mind.
  • Get involved - There are plenty of ways to get involved in policy as an academic, including consultations and calls for evidence, think tanks, POST notes and our WISE in 5’s!
  • Ask for Help - The policy world might still seem like a complex one, but the opportunities are plentiful with a little guidance on how to access them. If you have ideas but need help to execute them, then speak to your university, or the team at PolicyWISE.