Member spotlight: Ahmad Al-Hiari, De Montfort University

Tell us about you

I am a Lecturer in Leadership at De Montfort University (DMU), and a Visiting Research Fellow in Policy and Governance at the Centre for the Study of Corruption (CSC), University of Sussex. I am the founder of the DMU Policy Unit, which is an academic-led intelligence network that mobilises DMU’s research expertise to responsively address urgent policy challenges. My research focuses on public governance and policy transfer.

Tell us about your personal career pathway

Although I have been researching policy engagement and elite interviewing since 2018, my formal journey in policy engagement (on a professional level) began in 2023 when I convened a Policy Fellowship conference around developing anti-corruption policies in the Middle-East.

I came across UPEN during my research and decided to join its international sub-committee. I was offered great support in understanding the policy engagement landscapes in the UK, which inspired me to create my own policy engagement network at my university in November 2023. This network soon grew into a coalition of the willing, which then grew into a community of practice. In 2024, we successfully coordinated a joint effort across the university (58 researchers) to respond to the 2023 Royal Society’s Ukraine recovery conference report. I am working with a team of policing professionals (and academics) on transforming police-academic collaboration across the UK through systematic relationship building and framework development.

How did your institution first come to be a member of UPEN?

If I remember correctly, this was in 2023 when the university was looking to consolidate its commitment to evidence-based policymaking. UPEN’s network was a great opportunity to join the UK’s policy engagement community and begin working on channelling our expertise at DMU towards addressing the most pressing societal issues that the UK currently sees. As a UNAI SDG Hub Chair, we have an underlying commitment to create impact where possible, and UPEN presented a well-established engagement mechanism that can help us connect with other UK HEI policy engagement bodies to catalyse collaborative projects between us on urgent policy challenges that we can collectively contribute to.

What is your institution’s overall approach to academic-policy engagement?

More broadly, we are an outward-facing and entrepreneurial body dedicated to facilitating inter-university policy knowledge networks and building capacity for researchers and policy practitioners. Our approach is characterised by both Responsiveness and Collaboration, as we believe that is one our core missions as academics; to be responsive to challenges that we have expertise in, and to work collaboratively with stakeholders in finding solutions to such challenges. Central to our policy engagement philosophy is ‘rapid-response’, which we are hoping to promote as a new standard for how universities engage with government. This responsiveness is underpinned by our collaborative governance structure, which includes Co-Chairs from each of our three faculty, a steering group that consists of our top policy engagement experts, and a group of advisors who provide guidance on how to maximize our policy impact.

We provide targeted training and mentoring schemes to connect early-career researchers with experienced academics in policy engagement. This investment the university has made in our human capital ensures that ‘policy engagement’ becomes strongly embedded within our institutional research culture (not just an add-on activity).

What makes our approach particularly effective is our commitment to the UN’s SDGs, which is embodies in our UNAI SDG Hub Chair status. This approach has allowed us to establish ourselves as a recognised voice in the policy engagement arena, especially around the need for universities to be responsive in how they seek and address emerging policy challenges.

Tell us about a specific policy engagement project or achievement from your institution that you are particularly proud of.

The project I’m most proud of is our response to the Royal Society’s Ukraine Recovery Initiative, which exemplifies our rapid-response philosophy and collaborative approach to policy engagement.

The Challenge: In May 2023, the Royal Society hosted a two-day conference on “Ukraine’s Recovery: Rebuilding with Research” in partnership with UPEN, bringing together senior academics and policymakers from both the UK and Ukraine. The conference produced a comprehensive report identifying six critical themes for Ukraine’s reconstruction, and issued a call for UK universities to contribute their research expertise to this vital international effort.

What We Did: We recognised the urgency and importance of this initiative, and we took immediate action to mobilise DMU’s research community. I conducted a comprehensive analysis of the conference report and systematically mapped DMU’s research strengths against the six priority themes identified. Within a few weeks, we had formed seven thematic teams and built a coalition of 58 senior researchers across all DMU faculties. I personally communicated with over 140 members of staff about the project, with approximately 70-80 attending thematic meetings to explore links between their research and the conference priorities. To ensure strategic oversight, we established an advisory committee of Ukrainian academics and Ukraine specialists and worked closely with our existing partners to ground our approach in a more contextualized understanding of Ukrainian needs.

Each thematic team worked collaboratively to identify specific research projects, policy recommendations, and potential collaborations that could contribute to Ukraine’s recovery. We produced a comprehensive 80-page report showcasing DMU’s expertise and potential contributions, with each section carefully crafted to address the specific challenges and priorities identified in the Royal Society conference.

The Outcome: DMU became the first UK university to respond to this important call for contributions, setting a precedent for other institutions to follow. Our report was formally presented to the Royal Society, Universities UK International, UPEN, and a number of UK government departments (including the Ministry of Defence). We also shared a translated version of it with a number of Ukrainian ministries and NGOs, which helped us build collaborations around this initiative, later leading to the development of the “Crisis-Responsive International Science Partnership (CRSIP) Framework”.

More significantly, we received thanks from Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Education. And a formal recognition from the Minister for Science, Research and Innovation; Lord Patrick Vallance at the launch of the Science, Technology and Innovation pillar of the UK-Ukraine 100-year Partnership.

The project has greatly strengthened our institutional partnerships, as the enthusiasm generated across our faculties has created strong momentum for policy engagement. As a result, researchers who had never previously considered policy impact are now actively seeking opportunities to apply their expertise to contribute to real-world challenges.

From your institution’s perspective, what is the biggest value of being part of the UPEN network today?

I think UPEN’s role as a matchmaker between policy engagement opportunities and institutional expertise really makes this network valuable. When the Universities UK issued its call for contributions to Ukraine’s recovery, UPEN connected us with the right people and provided the strategic guidance we needed to craft a meaningful response. UPEN has essentially functioned as our policy engagement mentor and offered everything we needed, from expert-led training at our policy engagement symposium to opportunities to attend important events that helped strengthen our capacity.

Finally, what one piece of advice would you give to other members on how to make the most of their UPEN membership?

My advice is to be relentlessly responsive and action-oriented. UPEN can support you with intelligence and connections, but you must be ready to move quickly when opportunities arise. Don’t wait for perfect moments, when UPEN shares a call or an emerging policy priority, respond immediately with the expertise you can mobilise. We went from hearing about the Ukraine initiative to forming thematic teams and producing a comprehensive report within weeks.

The key takeaway here is treating the UPEN membership as an active partnership rather than a subscription service. Engage with the sub-committees, volunteer for working groups, and always be prepared to contribute your institution’s expertise when UPEN shares a call or update (I personally found the newsletter to be highly informative for such opportunities).