When reframing isn’t enough: more ways to get your research into policy

In a previous post, I looked at three approaches researchers can take when their work doesn’t align with current government policy: waiting actively for a more favourable minister or government, reframing evidence without changing it, and working with intermediaries to reach the right people. Those approaches will take you a long way. But sometimes they’re not enough. In this post, I cover three more options — each progressively more demanding, and the last one carrying real risks that are worth thinking through carefully before you proceed.

Work with another government

If you can't wait, you can't reframe, and you don’t have an intermediary who can get your idea to the right person in the right way, you can act already with another government. In the UK, many of these issues are devolved, so you can go to Scotland if it doesn't work in England. That's a live opportunity space, because the politics of the Scottish versus the English government are typically very different, so ideas that may be politically unfeasible in England may be opportunities for the Scottish government. If it's not a devolved issue, you can still go to other comparable countries — a Nordic country, somewhere else in Europe, or the US — and find a government for whom your evidence-based ideas look like a political opportunity.

Now, when a new government comes into power in the country you were originally targeting, you can pitch your idea again, and now you might have a government that is more aligned with the evidence, but you also have evidence that this works, based on the work you've done with another government. That makes a much more persuasive case for the government you originally wanted to listen to, to actually listen and act. Not only do you have the evidence you originally pitched, but you also have evidence that this works in another comparable country.

Bypass government altogether

Before you get to the last resort, you can consider bypassing the government altogether. There are many examples of research seeking national change that doesn’t require government policy at all. You could work with a trade union, a governing body, a royal college in a medical context, or a membership or professional body — if you can show that your evidence will benefit their members, you can work with them to recommend or provide guidelines and support for their members to implement it. I worked with someone doing human resources research once who had been pushing for a change in the law to get her research on more ethical hiring practices implemented across the country. Then she met someone from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and explained the benefits of her proposal for companies, and discovered that her idea was perfectly aligned with the body’s values and goals, and they set about working with her to create guidelines and training, and change the profession from the inside-out, without any need for legislation. 

Commercialisation is another way to do this; a spin-out company can disrupt a market without any need for new policies to regulate it. Everyone uses your product because it's not only safer or more environmentally friendly; it's cheaper and more effective. And all of a sudden, without having to regulate for safety or the environment, you’ve achieved the goal you were seeking. I've done this recently, working with companies on their decarbonisation strategies, because it's a much less regulated space. If you can come up with methods that enable companies to do their decarbonisation work to a higher evidential standard that protects them from claims of greenwashing, it turns out that many of the larger corporates will jump at the opportunity. So without having to regulate those claims — although you're still pushing for that — you can start working with these major players, who are typically the opinion leaders, to say you need to do this better, and here's the evidence and support to make that change.

Campaign, as a last resort

I always start with an advocacy approach — going to civil servants, presenting the evidence, explaining why it's better than what is currently being done, and trying to show how they can implement the evidence without spending too much, or how to find the money so it's politically feasible. I do my best to persuade people internally by building trusting relationships, using my 3i analysis to identify the relevant teams and people, and building relationships with successive civil servants as they change over the years. Each of the previous approaches I’ve described so far can be described as advocacy work. 

The problem arises when the civil servants are fully convinced, but the minister won't budge because it runs counter to their politics. At that point, you need to move from the insider approach of advocacy to an outsider approach — campaigning. You go back to the 3i analysis again and look for organisations that have most influence, and that are aligned with our evidence and impact goals, and ask ourselves whether there are powerful enough organisations, with sufficient resources and ability to influence media and the public, that could run a campaign to confront the government and force a change. Often, you discover that there are already organisations out there, campaigning already, who you can join and support. 

If there's nobody of sufficient influence to win such a campaign, I'd back out of this strategy. There's no point in wasting your time. But if there's a credible organisation, and you're happy working with them, then you can work with them to build a campaign that might just change the government's position. You don't have to be in a front-line, visible position, if you prefer (as I do) to support from behind the scenes with your evidence.

If you're working in a country where democratic processes are weak, then campaigning might not be a last resort. It is often very difficult to penetrate internal government networks as an outsider, and even if you work with trusted, local academics, it can be very hard to know how decisions are made, and how best to frame your evidence. However, it's worth considering the risks to your safety if you're campaigning against a government that cannot be held to account. I was on a project once with colleagues who blogged about an overseas government’s mistakes, based entirely on their research evidence, and they had their research permit cancelled and were never able to return to do research in that country again. In a worst-case scenario, you may not be coming back at all. You need to think about your own personal safety if you're going to actively campaign against certain governments.

 An example closer to home is the small role I played behind the scenes on the campaign to ban the sale of peat in garden centres. Around 80% of the UK's lowland peat bogs have been destroyed, either through drainage for agriculture or being dug up for use in horticulture. Gardeners like peat because it holds water effectively, so there's been a lot of resistance to moving to alternatives. The RSPB, working with the IUCN UK Peatland Programme and other partners, fronted the campaign. They got nowhere for years. No government was listening, but they kept pushing: media coverage, grassroots campaigns, working with their large membership — until governments began to listen.

I ended up on the task force helping to design England's phase-out, which is now banned for commercial use in garden centres in England and Wales, with legislation planned in Scotland, and Northern Ireland keeping a watching brief. We got there in the end, but it took a lot of patience. We had to take an outsider approach, because the gardening lobby was powerful and opposed it, and it wasn't an issue important enough to enough people to make time for. The campaign was broader than just the gardening issue — it raised awareness of peatlands' importance in the carbon cycle, climate change and rare wildlife. That slow, broader-based approach to convincing the public that peatlands were worth protecting helped build public support, making it easier for the government to align with the evidence.

None of these approaches will be a quick fix - few things move fast when it comes to policy. You can change how you present your evidence, but never the evidence itself. That means that you may find yourself flavour-of-the-month at a moment’s notice, or you may labour for years in obscurity, despite the growing strength of the evidence. The key thing is not to give up. If there’s any lesson I’ve learned in my years of working with policy, it is that you have to be patient and persevere. 

Key takeaways

• Devolved administrations and comparable countries offer live routes when the original government will not engage, since one government's politics can make an idea feasible that another rejects.
• Working with another government first turns your proposal into a tested one, giving you evidence that it works when political conditions change in the country you originally targeted.
• National change does not always require government at all; professional bodies, unions and royal colleges can implement evidence through guidelines and training for their members.
• Commercialisation can shift a market directly, achieving the policy goal without waiting for regulation, as when better decarbonisation methods are adopted voluntarily by large companies.
• Campaigning is the outsider approach for when officials are persuaded, but ministers will not move, and it is only worth attempting where an organisation with sufficient influence and resources exists to lead it.
• In countries with weak democratic accountability, campaigning carries genuine risks, from cancelled research permits to threats to personal safety.
• You can change how you present evidence, but never the evidence itself, and patience and perseverance decide most policy outcomes in the end.