It’s hard to influence policy. A huge number of people and organisations are involved, debates are complicated and fast moving, the language is often difficult to understand and responsibilities can seem unclear. It’s extremely challenging even for officials working as insiders. It must sometimes seem impossibly difficult to academics trying to influence from the outside.
Experts often get in touch with us asking how they can contribute to policy. That’s not the sort of question we can answer in five minutes so we’ve developed an online Policy Masterclass to explain how policy works and how we think academics can maximise their chances of influencing it.
Over two sessions, we explain the basics of policy, including the difference between parliament and government and how the Civil Service works, before sharing our thoughts on influencing tactics and skills.
We’ve delivered a version of this Policy Masterclass to our university partners for years and have only recently been offering it to others. Happily, the feedback has been really positive.
Check out some of the nice quotes below.
I appreciated the fact the training was offered by policy advisors who know the inner workings of the processes intimately and this was very evident. There were clear and concrete suggestions on how academics might engage with policy makers.
Masterclass attendee – Kingston University
Two fantastic sessions - really interesting and brilliant that they made it interactive and encouraged people to get involved. Felt it was really worthwhile, helped my understanding of policy in government and was overall an excellent session.
Masterclass attendee – Newcastle University
Email us at enquiries@openinnovation.gov.uk if you’d like to book a session or find out more.