Making your research accessible and available is not the same as ensuring it reaches those who could benefit from it. Furthermore, there's a difference between having research available and making it understandable; most open-access papers remain unintelligible to those outside the field in which they were published. To bridge this gap, it's important to differentiate between merely making your work available and ensuring it truly connects with and benefits the intended audience. This foundational understanding will set the stage for Module 3, where we discuss various ways to make your research more understandable to different policy audiences.
Interview with Robert McMorran
In the following video, Robert McMorran, a social researcher with the Scottish Government, discusses strategies for making research accessible and valuable to policy professionals. He emphasises the importance of early engagement with policymakers, integrating their concerns and relevance into research from the outset. He highlights the significance of building professional networks within relevant policy areas, sharing his own experiences in land reform and ownership, to maintain an ongoing dialogue with key policy figures.