While interviewing 12 Queen Mary policy-engaged researchers as part of a case study project, the Queen Mary Policy Hub team noted patterns across academics’ responses regarding the challenges of policy engagement and the institutional support that could help address these. The experiences and recommendations that the academics shared were so honest and striking that we felt compelled to dig deeper.
So, alongside the case studies that provide an overview of their policy engagement work, we thematically analysed the interview data to identify academics’ core concerns and recommendations and wrapped these all up, bows and ribbon included, into a policy brief.
Critical challenges included the limited time and capacity to do policy engagement, and efforts building and maintaining networks among parliamentarians and policymakers. Academics also discussed ethical concerns that may arise in impact work, and the difficulties they faced responding to external factors like changes in government and political agendas.
Currently, institutional support for policy engagement work at Queen Mary comes in the form of funding, both directly for research and impact work and indirectly for staffing, fellowship opportunities, and network-building spaces. Conversely, what we heard time and time again from the academics was that their ‘Christmas in July’ wish list to the university also included:
- Time: Increasing time allocation and flexibility, such as through involving interested students and building policy engagement into workloads;
- Funding: More resources for impact work, whether to pay participants for their involvement or academics themselves for more time;
- Networks: Creating spaces for policy professionals to connect, for instance through forums and workshops;
- Recognition: Building acknowledgement of impact work into academics’ roles, career progression and appraisals.
Research indicates that the challenges and support highlighted at Queen Mary are present across UK Higher Education Institutions. The ‘wish lists’ voiced by our academics are therefore also likely to be relevant to many universities looking to further support for policy engagement. We need to move away from a piecemeal system where there are pots of gold for the lucky few who are ‘in the know’ and lumps of coal for the rest. Universities need to make holistic support for policy engagement systematically available across their institutions for academics to leverage, regardless of whether they’ve been naughty or nice.
And if anyone is wondering, there’s a juicy bracelet at Cartier we’ve had our eyes on.
Access the policy brief on the Queen Mary Policy Hub website here.
Sangavi Sugumar works in Queen Mary’s People’s Palace Projects and Audrey Tan works in the Centre for Public Engagement.
