Meeting the sustainability challenge: Introducing the UPEN Academic-Policy Engagement Innovation Fund

Throughout the UK, universities are working with policy partners in creative, ambitious and impactful ways. Modes of engagement are becoming increasingly sophisticated and embedded. Governments and legislatures across the UK have also introduced new structures to support engagement with evidence and expertise to inform decision-making.

However, the sustainability of many investments and initiatives remains fragile. There is a widespread recognition that successful approaches are not always integrated, lessons are not always widely shared, and opportunities to scale or spread initiatives are missed. This is why the launch of the UPEN Innovation Fund represents an important moment for our network.

The current challenge

The case for the resourcing the research and innovation system to address policy challenges continues to be contested. The ongoing devolution agenda adds an extra layer of complexity, with increased attention to understanding evidence needs and successful interventions in specific local contexts.

We are building UPEN’s role in consolidating learning, building resilient infrastructure, and supporting the embedding of successful approaches across the nations and regions. Our next challenge is supporting ongoing innovation and reflection, building an evidence base for ‘what works’, and ensuring that successful approaches are recognised as being ‘business as usual’. The UPEN Innovation Fund is designed with these objectives in mind.

In particular, we want to understand:

• How can we create better systems, structures and processes to support academic-policy engagement across the UK?
• What are the most sustainable and scalable approaches?
• How can we embed collaborative and enduring practices which integrate a diversity of evidence?
• How do we keep relational approaches at the heart of knowledge mobilisation whilst reducing the burden on those involved?

The new UPEN Innovation Fund

Backed by £550,000 from Research England and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), UPEN’s Innovation Fund has been created to support collaborative, innovative, scalable and sustainable approaches to academic–policy engagement. We are seeking to unearth initiatives and programmes that require our support – through both seed-corn funding, and exploring the potential to embed them within UPEN’s programmes of work to develop a national infrastructure for academic-policy engagement.

What we’re looking for

We are looking for applications which:

• Put collaboration and partnership formation at the centre of proposals
• Have the potential to become sustainable and/or scalable
• Will develop long-term value for our the academic-policy engagement ecosystem
• Consider how activities could be maintained beyond the funding period.

This could include interventions aimed at building on existing activity, or which undertake experimentation and ‘learning by doing’ that leads to shared and measurable benefit. We are not looking for narrowly scoped projects that seek to disseminate or translate specific academic outputs. Proposals should work with a range of partners across institutional silos, identify shared challenges or uncertainties, and propose actions to address them.

The fund offers grants of between £10,000 and £50,000, with an expectation of a matched funding contribution of at least 20% through either cash or in-kind support. Projects are expected to last between 6 and 18 months.

Our focus is on ensuring that projects are appropriately aligned with UPEN’s core goals and are geared towards UPEN’s wider mission to strengthen the connections between universities and policy organisations.

What you need to do

We know that applying for small grants can often be unnecessarily resource-intensive. For this reason, we have developed a light-touch two-stage process with support provided at all stages. This is your opportunity to work with us on initiatives that will directly shape the future of UPEN and the wider ecosystem, building the future of academic–policy engagement together.

How to apply to the UPEN Innovation Fund

Our EOI process opened on Wednesday 15 July and closes on 20 September. The EOI will ask for a short summary of your project, the anticipated outcome and benefits and an estimation of the costs required. We encourage applicants to discuss ideas with us ahead of submission and once we have received your EOI, we may ask for additional information.

EOIs will be reviewed by an independent panel of three people, made up from our UPEN Advisory & Executive Boards, Programmes Strategy Group and UPEN Member Institutional Leads.

Successful EOIs will be notified by 2 October and invited to submit a full application by Tuesday 3 November. Final funding decisions will be announced in the week commencing Monday 16 November.

Visit the UPEN Innovation Fund webpage for more information or contact hello@upen.ac.uk to discuss your ideas. Laura Bea, UPEN’s Head of Membership and Network Development, is happy to engage with you to provide light-touch guidance and support to help you develop your bid in line with the criteria. Keep an eye on our socials for some drop-in sessions aimed at the community over the next few months.