Skip to main content

Bournemouth University

BU Research Blog

Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University

  • Home
  • RDS Team
    • Faculty-Facing Staff
    • Funding Development Team
    • Project Delivery Team
    • Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team
  • Clinical Governance @ BU
  • Research Ethics @ BU
  • REF 2021
    • BU REF 2021 Code of Practice
    • Declaration of Staff Circumstances
    • BU’s Unit of Assessment Teams
    • REF FAQs
    • Archive – REF 2014
      • BU REF 2014 Code of Practice
      • REF 2014 Frequently Asked Questions
        • REF 2014 Overview
        • Staff eligibility
        • Mock REF 2014 (REF preparation) exercises at BU
        • REF 2014 Assessment of outputs
        • REF 2014 Staff selection
        • REF 2014 Equality and diversity
  • Impact
    • Partnerships & collaborations
    • Working with businesses
      • Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF)
    • Communicating your research
    • Influencing policy makers
    • Public engagement
      • Quick guide to public engagement
    • Student engagement
      • Stages of engagement
      • Case study: Sean Beer
      • Case study: James Gavin
      • Case study: Anna Feigenbaum
  • Research Toolkit
  • Research Lifecycle
  • Policy
  • PGR
    • The Doctoral College Team

May 17, 2018

Policy impact – it’s about the what and the who – the how comes later

BU research, Impact, policy, Public engagement, Research Training, RKE development framework, Training, Uncategorized jforster

I presented a session today on engaging with policy makers, part of a regular series of workshops that we run at BU for academic and professional support staff.  As it isn’t always easy for staff to find time to attend these sessions, here are some of the key points.

It is easy to start a session like this with links to the many excellent resources on engaging policy makers.  I have put some at the end of this blog. But my main point was that actually engaging with policy makers is not the beginning of the policy impact journey – it comes later.  And that’s not because you can only engage with them when you have published research  – it’s because you need to engage with them when you are clear about what your message is and what the action is that you want them to take.  And also you will be more successful when you have already done a lot of engagement with other people beforehand so that they are ready to listen and take that crucial next step.

Engagement with other people is important for another reason – policy makers really only have time for things that are directly relevant and current, or in which they have a deep and personal interest.  And while there is lots of advice on how to find out what is relevant and current, that changes.  Today’s priority may not be one tomorrow, when an issue blows up that no-one was expecting. Or when they change jobs – as happens a lot.

So timing is everything and policy engagement is a two track process – the long term plan to engage those with long term, deep or personal interests in the relevant area, and the short term opportunistic engagement.  The most important thing is to start now, including by preparing for the opportunistic engagement.  If your issue suddenly becomes topical it will be much easier if you have prepared and don’t have to start writing overnight.  And you’re more likely to be heard if people have heard about you and your research before.

So today’s workshop included a planning process – not very exciting, perhaps – there are no press releases or Westminster events on here.  And maybe it’s obvious – start at the beginning by defining what difference the work will make in the world and what the change is that you want to see, and then work out who else wants the same things and work from there.  In the meantime, be flexible and make it easy.  If a politician wanted to speak about your work in the House of Commons tomorrow, what would you want them to say?

And once you have defined the what and the who, we can talk about the how.

There are tools to help with this in BU’s BU’s RKEO Impact toolkit.  Parliament’s website has a whole host of resources including some accessible how to guides and infographics.  The LSE impact blog is an excellent source of advice and information, and there are others too (eg UCL’s public policy pages).  There is guidance from the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement.  Our BU press team and RKEO impact teams are brilliant and well informed.

If you are interested in a discussion about any of this, or perhaps to run our workshop, please contact the policy team. 

 

Tags: policy impact ref 2021 research impact

Related Posts

  • Policy impact – a great idea but it’s a nightmare to do – so why get involved?October 16, 2018
  • Academics! Book your place now for the ‘Engaging with policy makers’ session next ThursdayNovember 9, 2017
  • Influencing Public Policy WorkshopOctober 25, 2016
  • How to Boost Your Research Impact through Policy WorkMarch 31, 2014

BU staff can login below:

Other services

Don’t miss a post!

Subscribe for the BU Research Digest, delivered freshly every day.


 

Recent posts

BU research Funding opportunities EU
  • Preparing for ERASMUS+ exchange to NepalMay 21, 2022
  • Congratulations to Dr. Rachel Arnold on her latest paperMay 19, 2022
  • e-Learning Dementia Education and Learning Through Simulation 2 (e-DEALTS 2) now successfully launched!May 19, 2022
  • A close up image of a football on a football pitch Conversation article – Jake Daniels: how homophobia in men’s football is changingMay 18, 2022
  • Overlapping brightly coloured heads Online public lecture – listening to seldom heard voicesMay 18, 2022
  • Integrity week 16 – 20 May 2022May 18, 2022
  • EU Funding News, May 2022May 17, 2022
  • RDS Funding Development Briefing – Wed. 11/05/22May 9, 2022
  • Research Professional – all you need to knowMay 3, 2022
  • RDS Funding Development Briefing on Wednesday 27/04/22April 26, 2022
  • Exploring society together Open Call Reminder: ESRC Festival 2022 – Deadline for applications Friday 29 AprilApril 25, 2022
  • Last chance to book! Spotlight on NIHR – Information Session – 27 April 2022April 25, 2022
  • EU Funding News, May 2022May 17, 2022
  • COST actions – European Cooperation in Science and TechnologyMarch 24, 2022
  • HE policy update for the w/e 18th March 2022March 21, 2022
  • Good UK – Horizon Europe NewsMarch 15, 2022
  • EU funding related events – March / April 2022March 14, 2022
  • He policy update for the w/e 10th March 2022March 14, 2022

Search by Category

Search by popular post topics

AHRC Brexit BRIAN BU research clinical research CMMPH collaboration collaborative research conference congratulations Edwin-blog-post ESRC EU Europe event Events Festival of Learning funding funding opportunities Fusion Fusion Investment Fund Health horizon 2020 HSC impact innovation knowledge exchange media midwifery Nepal nhs NIHR open access Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen publication public engagement publishing ref research Research Councils research professional RKE development framework social sciences training widening participation

RSS Research Information Network

  • Physical Sciences Case studies: information use and discovery
  • Information handling in collaborative research: an exploration of five case studies
  • Information literacy monitoring and evaluation
  • Data centres: their use, value and impact
  • Heading for the open road: costs and benefits of transitions in scholarly communications

RSS UKRI

Browse all our categories
  • Awarded & submitted bids
  • BRIAN
  • BU Challenges
  • BU research
  • BU2025
  • Business Engagement
  • Centre for Excellence in Learning
  • Clinical Governance
  • Coffee Morning
  • conferences
  • COVID-19
  • data management
  • Delicious links
  • Doctoral College
  • ECR Network
  • EPSRC
  • ESRC
  • EU
  • Events
  • Featured
  • Featured academics
  • Festival of Learning
  • Friday profile
  • Funding opportunities
  • Fusion
  • Fusion Investment Fund
  • Fusion themes
  • Global engagement
  • Grants Academy
  • Guidance
  • hate crime
  • HEIF
  • HSS Our 9 Research Entities
  • humanities
  • Impact
  • Industry collaboration
  • Info Days
  • innovation
  • international
  • Knowledge Exchange
  • Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team
  • Knowledge Transfer
  • Knowledge Transfer Partnership
  • News from the PVC
  • nhs
  • NHS
  • open accecss
  • open access
  • parliament
  • Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
  • PG research
  • policy
  • Post-award
  • Postgraduate Research
  • pre-award
  • Public engagement
  • Publishing
  • R & KE Operations
  • REF Subjects
  • Research assessment
  • Research Centres
  • Research communication
  • Research Concordat
  • Research Ethics
  • Research Integritiy
  • research integrity
  • Research news
  • research opportunities
  • research staff
  • Research Supervision
  • Research themes
  • Research Training
  • RKE development framework
  • staff profile pages
  • Strategic Investment Areas
  • Student Engagement
  • student research
  • the conversation
  • Training
  • UKRI
  • Uncategorized
  • Vitae
  • Women's Academic Network
  • writing
  • Twitter

© Bournemouth University 2022. All rights reserved.

  • Charitable status
  • Website privacy & cookies
  • Copyright and terms of use