Our work aims to further embed Areas of Research Interest across different levels of decision making, building best practice and connections to explore their effective use across the academic-policy engagement ecosystem.
Developing Areas of Research Interest
Areas of Research Interest (ARI) are published documents of research and evidence needs by public policy organisations. They provide governments, public bodies and parliaments with an open and structured way of communicating their priorities to the research community, and provide academics with guidance on where their expertise is most needed to inform current policy discussions.
Our work further embeds Areas of Research Interest in policymaking processes across the UK and integrates them with other mechanisms for academic-policy engagement such as fellowships and co-produced initiatives. This builds on work delivered through Capabilities in Academic Policy Engagement (CAPE) to support the development of Areas of Research Interest in legislatures and also the work of the Government Office for Science in establishing and growing the use of Areas of Research Interest in government.
Establishing best practice methodologies
We are creating resources that support the effective delivery of Areas of Research Interest in different policy contexts.
Piloting ARIs with different levels of decision making
We are developing Areas of Research Interest and engagement programmes with regional and local policy organisations to understand better what works.
Creating a practitioner network
Our Areas of Research Interest Practitioners Network will facilitate peer learning and exchange between policy organisations and the academic community.
We’re delighted to be working across the UK supporting organisations developing Areas of Research Interest – these include combined and local authorities, devolved governments, and parliaments.
We’ll be working with universities to explore the activities they can develop with partners to make the most of ARIs, integrating this tool alongside others such as fellowships and learning workshops to support effective research-policy engagement.
Nicky Buckley and Rob DaviesCo-leads Areas of Research Interest work
Explore Areas of Research Interest
Areas of Research Interest from government including government departments and arms lengths bodies are available to search in the ARI database.
Areas of Research Interest are used across legislatures in the UK. Note that Areas of Research Interest are not exhaustive lists of all areas of research that legislatures are interested in and that parliamentary committees also gather evidence through calls for evidence as part of inquiries.
UK Parliament Areas of Research Interest. Parliament’s Areas of Research Interest are published by their select committees both in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords.
Expert support when developing your Areas of Research Interest
We can connect policy organisations to the academic and knowledge mobiliser community to ensure Areas of Research Interest are relevant, well communicated and aligned with UK research. We can also work with you to develop an outreach plan, and offer you tips on how to manage responses. Get in touch with our team below.
Share your Areas of Research Interest with our audience of academics across 120+ universities
We can disseminate Areas of Research Interest to our university members, reach academics across the UK, and can host events to ensure researchers are aware of the evidence needs of policy organisations. Contact us to discuss.
Resources on Areas of Research Interest
The following resources focus on developing Areas of Research Interest at a sub-national level of government. We suggest consulting them if you are, or are working with, local and combined authorities to develop Areas of Research Interest.
