I want to influence policy
Pre-Order 'The Researcher's Guide to Influencing Policy'
Designed to help navigate the complex and ethical challenges of working with policy, this must-read book will help researchers effect changes with meaningful and wide-spread impact. Readers will learn how to negotiate complex power dynamics, use informing and influencing strategies, and play critical roles in policy networks to give voice to those who are rarely heard in the corridors of power.
This guide is based on two decades of Professor Reed’s peer-reviewed work on the impact of research and his experience using his environmental research to influence policy around the world. It covers the tried and tested practical skills needed to co-produce policy options, based on rigorous evidence and the perspectives of those whose lives will ultimately be affected by policy. Importantly, it provides the tools required to communicate research effectively to policy audiences and collect evidence of policy impacts.
Applicable to all disciplines and career stages, The Researcher’s Guide to Influencing Policy provides the confidence needed to start engaging with policy safely, responsibly, and effectively. It is time to get out of the echo chamber of research and policy elites and to start getting our hands dirty with the messy reality of real-world policy.
Material from the handbook
Podcasts
Mark considers the moral premise of responsible policy engagement and discusses four ways that researchers often inadvertently lose the trust of members of the policy community.
In the second of this three-part series on getting your research into policy, Mark interviews a researcher who ended up leading a country's negotiations at a UN summit when the chief negotiator he was advising died, the head of climate science for WFF who has the discomfort of being based in the USA and the head of a global initiative to protect peatlands for UN Environment.
Research into Policy Part 3: Practical skills to inform and influence
Building on the ethics and principles from part 1 and interviews in part 2, in this final episode Mark considers practical ways to both inform and influence policy based on reliable evidence from research.
Using a policy seminar to establish relationships and build long term pathways to impact
In a bonus episode this week from the climate conference in Madrid, Mark provides a worked example of how to use a policy seminar to generate relationships that have the potential to deliver long-term impacts from research.
Increase the likelihood of your research getting taken up by policy
Rosi talks about her PhD research on science-policy exchange, explaining how you can increase the likelihood that evidence from your research is taken up by policymakers.
Too much of a good thing: can too much trust and privilege be bad for impact
Interview with Bec Colvin and Chris Cvitanovic from Australia National University about their work with policy on climate change and first nations communities, in which they describe surprising research about the danger of generating too much trust with policy-makers.
Videos
Evidencing policy impacts
Evidencing policy impacts
Fast track Impact
Training course