Subcommittees
The UPEN Subcommittees are run by members across the UK, focusing on various topics within the policy engagement space. They produce reports, findings, explore best practice, and host events in their topic area. Please see below the current UPEN Subcommittees and their Chairs.
International Subcommittee
The International Subcommittee's mission is to enable researchers and knowledge mobiliisers at UPEN Member Universities and the international policy-shaping community to connect, collaborate and learn from each other, thereby improving public policy. They aim to raise awareness in parts of the international policy-shaping community of UPEN's added value, including as an economic and effective means to broaden involvement in policy engagement, as well as raise levels of understanding among UPEN member Universities of UPEN's peers and allies outside of the UK, including the potential relevance of their research.
The Chairs for the International Subcommittee are:
Yaryna Basystyuk, University of Southampton
Professional Development Subcommittee
The Professional Development Subcommittee's mission is to support UPEN members in their policy engagement work through best practice, mentoring, training, and development. In noting that training and development is still rare in the sector, and in recognition of new career pathways rapidly emerging, the subcommittee aims to define a professional development framework for policy engagement as well as a comprehensive training and development programme.
The Chairs for the Professional Development Subcommittee are:
Chris Hewson, University of York
Tamsin Woodward-Smith, University of Surrey
Areas of Research Interest Subcommittee
The ARI subcommittee provides a conduit between Chief Scientific Advisors offices within government departments and the academic community through increasing understanding of Areas of Research Interest. This is done through the development and response to Areas of Research Interest in facilitating dialogue and supporting requests through the broader UPEN membership. Within this, the subcommittee supports and increases diversity of thought for Chief Scientific Advisors Offices and enables a broad range of UPEN partners to participate in this discourse.
The Chairs for the Areas of Research Interest subcommittee are:
Gareth Giles, University of Southampton
Lenny Rolles, University of Sussex
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Subcommittee
The Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Subcommittee aim to understand and address systemic challenges relating to intersectional equity, equality, diversity, inclusion and accessibility in UK academic-policy engagement.
The Chairs for the EDI sub-committee are:
Olivia Stevenson, UCL
Kayleigh Renberg-Fawcett, CAPE
Devolved and Regional Subcommittee
The Devolved and Regional Policy Engagement create and deliver outputs for the wider UPEN network which will allow those with an interest in either level of government to benefit from the findings and support colleagues across the network through building a shared understanding of the nature of engagement on a regional/metropolitan basis. The aim is to provide a practical reflection of the challenges and opportunities in engagement with different levels of government on a given policy theme – each of which differ in terms of their competences, structure and capacity for engagement.
The Chairs for the Devolved and Regional Subcommittee are:
Camelia Dijkstra, University of Wolverhampton
Secretariat: Chris Wyatt, University of Wolverhampton
Communications Subcommittee
The Communications subcommittee is responsible for supporting UPEN's visibility across the sector and to policymakers, helping it achieve its ambitions at an organisational level, but also supporting its various sub-committees work streams.
The Chairs for the Communications Subcommittee are:
Charlotte Humma, University of Sussex
David-John Mather, Newcastle University
