2. You can work out how to engage with the
Governments and organisations you want
to influence…
Question:Informing policy
Submit evidence to
• Public Bill Committees
• Select Committee Inquiries
• All-Party Parliamentary Group Inquiries
Suggest a POSTnote (England)
or SPICe briefing (Scotland) or
equivalent in Wales & NI
Consultation responses
Contribute to international
science-policy interfaces e.g.
IPCC and IPBES
Speak at a side-event
at an international
policy conference
4. We need to use the established channels,
but it is hard to know if your evidence
made a difference (my last consultation
response was 1 of 40,000)
Is our job simply to inform policy (make
evidence available when requested)?
Should we try and influence policy (pro-
actively target and clearly communicate
evidence to relevant teams)?
Question:Why influence?
6. Why inform?
Save yourself time
Don’t waste time of
civil servants
Don’t get asked
difficult questions
Don’t risk your
professional
reputation
Question:Why influence?
Why influence?
Don’t risk important
evidence being
missed
Engage with
questions to avoid
misinterpretation
Build relationships,
get asked to help
7. Do high quality research
Question:Policy influencing principles
Make your research
relevant and readable
Understand policy
processes
Be accessible to
policymakers: engage
routinely, flexible, and
humbly
Decide if you want
to be an issue
advocate or
honest broker
Build
relationships
(and ground
rules) with
policymakers
Reflect continuously:
what’s working?
Based on a systematic review of literature by Oliver and Cairney (2019)
8. How do you feel?
Question:Identifying your red lines
Limited Influence and Impact More
Lower risk Higher risk
Session 2:
Tools
Session 3:
Writing a
policy brief
Session 4:
Using a
policy brief
Session
5:
Pitching
policy
options
Session 6:
Pincer
movement
Session 7:
Evidencing
impact
14. The good that
researchers do
in the world
Question:Types of policy impact
Types of impacts from
good policies
implemented well, for
example:
• Health/wellbeing
Interim/initial impacts you might see on the pathway
to policy impacts, for example:
• Increased awareness or understanding of an issue
15. Capacity building
Understanding and awareness
Attitudinal
Other forms of decision-making and behaviour change impacts
Policy
Health and wellbeing Economic
Cultural
Other social
Environmental
16. Attribution is the causal link between claimed
impacts and underpinning research
Significance is the degree to which the impact
has enriched, influence, informed or changed
policies, practices, products, opportunities or
perceptions of individuals, communities or
organisations
Reach is the extent and diversity of the
communities, environments, individuals,
organisations or any other beneficiaries that may
have been impacted by the research
Evaluating ImpactPolicy impacts that matter
21. Who has a stake in my research?
1. Stakeholder analysis
2. Impact planning
Two Tools
22. Who has a stake in my research?
1. Who is interested (or not)?
2. Who has influence (to facilitate or block
impact)?
3. Who is impacted (positively or negatively)
e.g. playing into or compromising political
interests?
Why?
Stakeholder analysis: 3i’s
26. Who has a stake in my research?
Summary or synthesis of research evidence
Targets an issue, evidence gap or policy
need
Provides policy options, advice or actions
You can write and design you own policy
brief or be part of a series
What is a policy brief?
27. Who has a stake in my research?
When you’ve submitted evidence to a
consultation or inquiry that you also want to
get to specific people or teams
As a visual aid for a talk or meeting to leave
with participants for follow-up
When your research is only part of the
picture – integrate with other projects or
evidence synthesis
When is a policy brief useful?
28. Who has a stake in my research?
Choose a policy brief
Explain what you like or dislike?
What makes a good policy brief?
29. Who has a stake in my research?
Getting your focus right:
Use your stakeholder analysis to identify
warm contacts from relevant policy networks
(e.g. engaged researchers, third sector,
consultants, agency staff, civil servants,
MPs)
Tailored email based on intersection between
your interests and theirs
Meet to discuss evidence gaps, policy needs
and other questions
Co-producing a policy brief
30. Who has a stake in my research?
Getting your content right:
Get their help to identify keywords that will
resonate with your audience
Get their feedback on draft text and design
(including photos and infographics)
Stress-test drafts with stakeholders
Co-producing a policy brief
32. How do you feel?
Question:Identifying your red lines
Limited Influence and Impact More
Lower risk Higher risk
Session 2:
Tools
Session 3:
Writing a
policy brief
Session 4:
Using a
policy brief
Session
5:
Pitching
policy
options
Session 6:
Pincer
movement
Session 7:
Evidencing
impact
34. Who has a stake in my research?
Revisit your stakeholder analysis
Focus on high interest/influence groups that will
directly benefit from your research
Fine-grain your analysis if necessary to identify
specific teams and individuals via online research
and help from colleagues
Create invitations based on their interests
(tailored for one-to-one meetings or list most
important benefits for seminars)
Targeting key people and teams
35. Who has a stake in my research?
Options to consider:
Single issue/presenter versus curating a
programme
Joining a seminar series versus creating a
stand-alone event
In-house or a nearby venue with a nice lunch
Presentation/questions or participatory
format
Feedback questionnaire or post-card to your
future self
Policy seminars
36. Who has a stake in my research?
Options to consider:
Cold call or be introduced via a trusted
intermediary
Send key messages and policy brief via
intermediary, visit with them or go yourself
Come in listening mode or with key
messages
Their office or a coffee shop
One-to-one meetings
37. Who has a stake in my research?What could go wrong?
UNCCD COP9: The talk was
the only thing that went right
Rural Economy and Land Use
programme: “I think this
question’s for you Mark”
38. Who has a stake in my research?
What is the difference between influence and
manipulation?
How might researchers inadvertently cross
their own red lines?
Discussion exercise
39. How do you feel?
Question:Identifying your red lines
Limited Influence and Impact More
Lower risk Higher risk
Session 2:
Tools
Session 3:
Writing a
policy brief
Session 4:
Using a
policy brief
Session
5:
Pitching
policy
options
Session 6:
Pincer
movement
Session 7:
Evidencing
impact
41. 1. Purpose
2. Communicate tangible benefits
3. Explain why these benefits are important
4. Give people a reason to trust you
5. What’s coming next
1. Have purpose
42. The best speakers empathise with their
audiences, and their audiences identify with
them
How can you empathise and connect with
an audience?
2. Connect
43. Know your audience
If you don’t, start off getting to know them
What concerns and motivates them most?
The power of stories
Stories with impact are personal, unexpected,
visual, visceral
Use your body language:
Open & approachable; positive & energised
Your audience will mirror you emotionally
2. Connect
44. Authoritative ≠ intimidating
Posture: be aware of your feet
Start/end at “home” position and use different
stage positions for different points
Use emphasis to make every word and
sentence count:
Slow down and spell out key points
Use volume
Vary intonation
Pause/silence
3. Be authoritative and passionate
45. Identify one, memorable key message
Repeat it in different ways, coming at it
from different angles to communicate your
secondary messages
People will forget the detail, so use the
detail to build and convey your key message
Use stories, images and metaphors to make
your message stick
4. Keep it simple
46. Practice and practice again
Record yourself, get feedback, identify bad
habits and practice breaking them
Speaking too fast, pacing, verbal fillers
Use your visual aids to add impact to your
message, not as your notes
5. Polish
47. Ella aged 2 wearing
mum’s shoes
Ella aged 22
Put yourself in their shoes: have purpose, connect, be
authoritative & passionate, keep it simple, and polish your
shoes regularly
49. Who has a stake in my research?
Which do you feel more comfortable with and
why?
Issue advocate
Honest broker
Bottom-up: the trusted advisor
50. Who has a stake in my research?
You don’t have to be the world expert to become
the “go to” person:
Identify junior civil servants who work with
evidence in your field
Offer targeted help based on their
interests/remit, asking what else you can do
Work in the public interest, not just to get your
research used
Deliver useful, understandable and on time, via
your network if outside your expertise
Wait for them to connect you to their teams
Bottom-up: the trusted advisor
51. Who has a stake in my research?
Identify influential stakeholder organisations and
decide if you can work with them (considering
risks to your values and reputation)
Offer help to junior staff who work with evidence,
build trust and get to know their teams
Provide evidence for them to use in high-level
meetings, if possible briefing and de-briefing
before/after
The risk: they cherry-pick or distort the evidence
to lobby using your name and credibility
Top-down: intermediaries
52. Who has a stake in my research?
When it all comes together…
Top-down and bottom up
53. How do you feel?
Question:Identifying your red lines
Limited Influence and Impact More
Lower risk Higher risk
Session 2:
Tools
Session 3:
Writing a
policy brief
Session 4:
Using a
policy brief
Session
5:
Pitching
policy
options
Session 6:
Pincer
movement
Session 7:
Evidencing
impact
55. Read and discuss
Evaluation:
Track indicators/milestones identified in
your impact plan
Design a more sophisticated evaluation to
establish whether you had impact
Think about it early in case you need
before/after comparison etc.
Monitoring:
Opportunistically capture impacts as they
arise, whether expected or unexpected…
You need to do two things…
56. Read and discuss
Do you systematically track the impact of
your research?
Monitoring impact
57. Read and discussMonitoring impact
Find a way to continually track your
impacts easily to take the pain out of
reporting:
Email impacts/evidence to yourself and file
Ring binder/scrap book
Evernote: enable team members from any
institution to collate impacts in a shared
notebook without having to log into
anything…
61. The process of assessing the significance and
reach of both positive and negative effects of
research
Your task is to identify causal links between:
Research (cause)
Impact (effect)
To create an evidence-based argument that
your research was sufficient or necessary to
generate the claimed impact
Evaluating ImpactWhat is impact evaluation?
62. Entry level evaluation: use common sense to
assess milestones and indicators (establishing
baselines as necessary)
Evaluating ImpactEvaluating impact
63. Evaluation design = research design
Get win-wins for your research by asking “what’s
my impact” as a research question and identifying
methods already in your toolkit
Get targeted help when there’s a tool missing
Be proportionate
Do parts of your design e.g. online survey,
interview
Rigour from triangulation
Get feedback, plugging gaps till it is believable
Evaluating ImpactEvaluating impact
64. What are you claiming?
Whole or part of policy?
Why is the component you influenced important?
Ideal situation: policy citation
Likely situation:
Policy reflects research findings or
recommendations
Evidence of significant engagement and uptake in
policy processes
Testimonial interview: significance, reach,
attribution and ethics
Evaluating ImpactEvaluating policy impacts
66. The Eureka moment
The concept paper
The Guardian
It was just an idea
The funding
Reaching scientific consensus with IUCN
The Peatland Code
Keeping new Governments on side
Evidence to justify peatland spend in austerity
Private investment, significant new public spend
UN interest, IUCN and UN resolutions, Global
Peatland Assessment
Evaluating ImpactCase study
68. What will I do to take a step towards a more
relational approach that could generate more
impact from my evidence?
How can I mitigate risks? Where do I draw the
line?
Evaluating ImpactPaired discussion