Member spotlight: Justin Fisher and Rosie Smith, Brunel University

Hi Justin and Roise. Tell us about you both

We’re Justin Fisher and Rosie Smith from Brunel Public Policy at Brunel University of London. Justin is the Director of Brunel Public Policy and also a Professor of Political Science at the University. Rosie is the Manager of Brunel Public Policy, overseeing and planning all the work that we do.

Tell us about your personal career pathways

Justin has been actively engaged in policy engagement throughout his academic career. He always found it enjoyable and, of course, it began to get formal recognition for the University when impact case studies were introduced for the REF. He set up Brunel Public Policy to showcase the excellent research at Brunel and broaden the involvement of colleagues in policy work. He was also determined to build a better institutional memory around policy engagement.

Rosie is a volcanologist who specialises in rock fracture on volcanoes. After completing her postdoctoral work, she moved into professional services where she managed a large department at UCL. She joined Brunel in 2023 to help Brunel Public Policy develop and expand its work.

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

We joined UPEN quite early on after meeting with Sarah Chaytor and Olivia Stevenson from UCL. We wanted to learn from them about their policy unit. They were incredibly helpful, and in the course of the discussions, they told us about UPEN, which sounded like a fantastic network. Our goal was to learn from colleagues in other universities and be better connected to both opportunities for engagement and to other policy units. It’s safe to say that UPEN has delivered this and plenty more!

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

We adopt what we call Re-Active and Pro-Active approaches. In terms of re-active work, we use excellent resources like the UPEN newsletter to contact colleagues at Brunel with relevant research interests to alert them to opportunities such as inquiries and consultations. We then work with them to help them to produce their responses.

Pro-actively, we work closely with our research leaders to identify colleagues whose work may have policy potential. We work with them produce short policy briefs. We then engage in stakeholder mapping and distribute the briefs. This often results in the colleagues being invited to meet with civil servants and other policy officials.

Coupled with this regular activity, we work closely with the Open Innovation Team in Whitehall. Brunel is a partner of the Open Innovation Team, and we manage this on behalf of the university. This involves a whole host of activities, including policy training sessions, impact advice clinics for selected academic colleagues and research teams, hosting civil service fellows, policy schools for our students, and responding to calls from Whitehall for evidence. Reflecting our desire to build institutional memory, we try and capture all activity on our website.

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

The thing of which we are most proud is the huge growth in the diversity of people engaged in policy work across the University. Whereas previously, this was often conducted on the basis of personal networks in a few disciplines, we now have extensive engagement from every academic department. And, there is also significant diversity in terms of who engages, with younger colleagues and especially women now very likely to be involved. Indeed, we now have more women than men involved in policy work at Brunel.

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

In many ways, the same things that attracted us when we first joined. We have learned – and continue to learn – a huge amount from colleagues in other universities. And because of UPEN, both the quality and quantity of policy engagement have increased significantly across the sector. We all learn from each other. Coupled with that, we are plugged into the network that is the main focus for UK university policy engagement, and so we become aware of a whole host of opportunities that would otherwise be more difficult to find.

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

Get to know colleagues in other universities. You’ll learn a huge amount from others on how best to do certain things. Remember, most challenges in universities are common across all, so it’s always worth hearing from people on how they’ve approached those challenges.