Making a positive difference – celebrating LBU Policy Week 2024

Academic Policy Engagement is a term used to describe activities and interactions whereby researchers, academics and policymakers connect to explore mutual subjects of interest, to improve policy by maximising collective experience, expertise, and research evidence and insight.

Making a difference is woven into the fabric of Leeds Beckett University. Our strategic purpose is to make a positive and decisive difference to people, organisations and communities through excellent education research and service. It is through our translational research that we drive impact that embeds sustainable social, economic, and cultural benefit for the communities we serve. Impact is important to us as a university and especially as an Anchor Institution, and one way in which we can create and capture this is through Academic Policy Engagement.

As described, policymakers require a sound evidence base from which to make policy decisions. This includes tapping into the credible expertise of academia. However, there is often a disconnect or barrier to the exchange of knowledge in this space due to several reasons including language, preconceived obstacles of relevance and real-world application, nervousness to engage with those who may disagree.

Last month we launched Policy Week at The Knowledge Exchange. A key aim of The Knowledge Exchange is to make the interactions between academia and the outside world easier. Policy Week, kick started our efforts to support further connectivity, collaboration, and co-creations in this space.

This five-day series of Knowledge Exchange events and workshops saw knowledge exchange at its best. The week aimed to share best practice, case studies and development opportunities for academics, professional services, our partner organisations who represent the business community, and policymakers. We heard from academic colleagues, practitioners, and policymakers from both local and regional government. Covering all aspects of policy engagement through different lenses. Policy Week saw over 200 attendees across the 11 events.

It was a great exhibition of how deeply connected we are with regional and national agendas and the strength and reciprocal value of our regional partnerships.

In our region, Leeds Beckett is part of a policy engagement network, Y-PERN (Yorkshire Policy Engagement Research Network). This infrastructure provides connectivity for researchers, knowledge mobilisation and policy communities to improve how evidence and expertise shapes policy. We were joined by colleagues from the Y-PERN team to highlight just how this network can help with engagement collaboration and cocreation.

It was an absolute pleasure to hear the case studies, warts and all, from our academic colleagues who have worked tirelessly over several years to transform policy, create deep impact, and genuinely make a difference to people’s lives. There are many more stories like this from across our institution but one thing they all have in common is a genuine passion for positive change, a person-centred approach to research that runs deep into the DNA of the institution. I would like to thank all our speakers for their valuable contributions and let’s hope we have sparked others to begin a journey of engaging with policy making and create impact in this way!