Supporting policy engagement at LBU

Why start engaging with policy now?

Right now, the UK and the world are facing an unprecedented series of challenges, such as climate change and inequality. The demand for new and innovative solutions is greater than ever before, and the research and skills contained in Leeds Beckett will be crucial to tackling those emerging issues.

As an anchor institution, our responsibility to positively impact our community is central to who we are. One of the best ways to do this is to work with policy makers at the local level (Leeds City Council and local institutions) and national level to use your expertise to improve how we deliver public services, craft legislation and identify gaps and inequalities in our laws and budgets.

Now that impact has become a larger part of the REF, policy engagement has become one of the best ways to demonstrate impact and is an asset to any potential case studies. This is in addition to being a great way to raise your academic profile.

What resources are already available to staff at LBU for policy engagement activity?

In the next year we will have a policy engagement webpage up and running so keep an eye out for that! In the meantime there are a number of great resources all staff can access: Guide on writing policy briefs for impact and Writing for policy makers. All staff have access to Overton, which is a database of policy papers from all around the world and is an incredible resource for tracking your impact and seeing what previous resources have been published.

I’d recommend signing up to emails from parliament’s knowledge exchange service, POST. They are frequently looking for experts to contribute to their research and publications. You can send them relevant literature or contribute your expertise, which is then published and used to inform decisions made by MPs and policy makers. POST also offers advice on communicating your research and knowledge to policy makers.

Parliamentary select committees are another great resource and avenue for policy engagement. These are committees made up of MPs and minsters for specific subjects who meet to discus pertinent issues. They also launch inquiries which seek the contributions of experts. You have the opportunity to submit written evidence (we can help write or edit your submission). The committee may want to speak to you further and ask you to meet in person or online to deliver oral evidence in a public committee session. Written and oral evidence are invaluable opportunities to answer MPs’ questions, counter misperceptions and influence national policy.

Make sure to sign up for Knowledge Exchange Units’ (KEU) biweekly roundup which will summarise all these opportunities.

How can you support research active staff with their policy engagement activity?

We can help find avenues for policy engagement, determine which MPs and policy makers might be interested and discuss how your research might apply to policy. We can also help write policy engagement material, including policy briefings and written evidence. Translating your research into a form that’s accessible and useful to policy makers takes quite an adjustment and we can help you decide what format is most effective.

What advice would you give to researchers who want to develop their knowledge and understanding of the academic policy landscape?

Try and ask yourself, “so what?” when considering policy engagement. It’s essential that you tell policy makers why they should care and what they should do. So, what implications does your research have for national policy? The more direct it is the better. In other words, if someone who is not an academic, with very little knowledge of your field can still ask “so what?” at the end of your discussion or policy briefing, it’s not going to be as impactful as it should be.

How can we reach you?

My email is g.g.may@leedsbeckett.ac.uk There’s no need to have a specific question or to already be working on policy engagement. If you would like to learn more or discuss projects that are in their earliest stages, that’s no problem!