Engaging with policymakers

It’s one thing to get a piece of academic research published. It’s another thing to disseminate that research, and ensure that the decision makers in your field recognise and act on your research findings.

Over the past ten years I've had the opportunity to work with all sorts of organisations - from chambers of commerce and trade associations, to communications agencies and university research departments - to help them engage with political decision makers. 

Here are some lessons about engagement that universities and academic researchers can benefit from.

Firstly, don't pretend that this process is below you, or beyond your capacities.

Call it what you will - targeted communications, advocacy, public affairs engagement, lobbying. However you label it, no one should consider themselves too grand or too important to engage with politicians, policy experts and other decision makers. Your peers and your competitors certainly won't have such reservations, and neither should you. Neither should you regard the process as impossible. If you’ve ever had to give a young person advice on their first job interview, you’ll already know the processes of effective engagement. Follow the same advice that you would give someone starting out their professional life: set out your case and your qualifications succinctly; don’t exaggerate anything or be tempted to just tell people what they want to hear; politely listen to the other person’s point of view; follow up in writing to say thank you for meeting and to confirm the next steps you will take together.  

Secondly, it helps to be able to appreciate that there is a distinction between 'outside' lobbying (or engagement) and 'inside' lobbying. Academics need to know when to use each strategy. 

Outside lobbying is about raising awareness through public communication (writing blogs, issuing press releases, organising events and public campaigns). Inside lobbying is about conveying your views directly –and more privately– to decision makers (sending letters and emails, following up with phone calls, securing face-to-face meetings). Neither one of these is necessarily better than the other: one is simply more visible, the other less so. 

Think carefully about how you might want to use each of these approaches, and consider when an outsider or an insider strategy will have the most impact. 

Third, to engage effectively you need to be realistic about what you can achieve. Go a bit further than the cliché 'know your audience' and be really self-analytical when thinking about your engagement strategy.

This will sound blunt but remember that you're not going to win over everyone all of the time. Some decision makers may –for philosophical, personal or electoral reasons – be totally opposed to anything you propose, no matter how well-researched your recommendations are or how well-written your paper is. There is simply nothing you can do to get them to meet you or to consider your analysis and recommendations.

For those who are undecided and are open to considering what you have to say – and this will be the majority of people you engage with – try to look at things from their point of view.

What are their objectives in the short to medium term? What are their broader interests in the long term? When engaging with decision makers, ask yourself honestly how you could help to advance their objectives and interests, as well as your own. 

Fourth, remember that some things may be out of your control. 

On one occasion I helped to draft and submit a letter to a national broadsheet signed by dozens of highly regarded specialists. We heard from the letters editor who said that the letter would make the ‘splash’: in other words, the lead story on the first page. The next day I bought the paper and right there on the first page was...an article about Taylor Swift, accompanied by a giant picture. 

I recall another time when I was involved in helping a company to organise a major event in Brussels and dozens of Members of the European Parliament told us that they would take part. On the day itself, Hugh Grant was at the European Parliament testifying about phone hacking. Guess which event most of the MEPs went to?

Sometimes these things just happen. The editor of a newspaper decides another story is more important than the issue you are working on. A celebrity shows up on the same day as your big event. You are not at fault and the fact that other things take precedence (fairly or unfairly) is out of your control. These sorts of events teach you to accept them, move on, and persevere in your engagement. 

Fifth, you need to be aware of and research the calendar in your focus area. We all know the frustration of learning about a major policy announcement in the news, and thinking 'I could have helped advise on that'. To engage meaningfully, consider what the must-attend events are for key influencers and policymakers in your area of expertise. 

If you work on UK food and agriculture policy, for instance, you'll want to attend the Oxford Farming Conference (or the alternative Oxford Real Farming Conference) in the first week of January. 

If your focus is climate change, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change's conference always takes place in Bonn in late May-early June, and effectively sets the agenda for the more newsy Conference of the Parties (think COP15 in Copenhagen, COP21 in Paris, and COP26 in Glasgow) which always takes place in November or December. 

Each sector has moments in the year where there is more public, political and media attention devoted to their issue. If you are aware of when these moments are, you can seize on that attention and time your engagement (or media intervention, or publication of a set of recommendations) around these dates. 

Engaging with decision makers can be challenging, but it’s not impossible. They will often welcome (and enjoy) the opportunity to speak directly with academics about their research and how it can form effective policy. If you can honestly consider your area of expertise from another person’s point of view, know your audience and appreciate where they are coming from, and recognise the importance of timing, you will already be well on your way to getting your written recommendations implemented into real world solutions.