PolicyWISE's fourth cross-nation Policy Learning Roundtable: England

We have published the summary report of the roundtable held in England in April 2025 to examine cross-nation policy learning and challenges over the last 25 years, and to look forward to improved comparative policy research and knowledge exchange. 

Takeaways included:

• Devolution in England is still evolving, creating a representative gap for people living in areas not currently covered by a combined authority. This is a barrier to genuine policy learning and co-ordination within England, and across the UK. The event brought together senior policymakers, analysts, academics, think-tank colleagues, education leaders, inter-governmental officials, and economists – from across Northern Ireland, and beyond. 
• The Greater Manchester model is viewed as a successful example of collaborative partnership but is not easily replicable in areas with less history of working together or less experienced leaders.
• Cross-nation learning is not embedded in policy making – addressing this would improve policymaker capacity and capability, whilst also becoming more devolution literate.

This was the fourth and final in a series of roundtables across the nations, we have previously published reports from our previous events in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Northern Ireland. Our aims in hosting these series of roundtables are to help inform and improve how policy learning and development works across nations and administrations, how comparative policy research, data and researchers can contribute, and the use and development of cross-nation networks and communities.