Watch Gavin Costigan discuss the importance of UPEN.
UPEN in numbers
Passing the Baton: From Southampton to Nottingham
Gavin Costigan, Chief Executive of the Foundation for Science and Technology and Chair of UPEN for the 2019-2019 academic year, reflects on the inauguration of UPEN and how far UPEN has come in the past year. He highlights the challenges he faced with setting up a body of 36 members and the accomplishments that have been achieved.
Stephen Meek, Director of the Institute of Policy and Engagement at the University of Nottingham and Chair of UPEN for the 2019-2020 academic year, discusses his future ambitions for UPEN moving forward. Read his full blog post here.
Events organised by UPEN
UPEN International Policy Brokerage Meeting in London was hosted on June 13th by University College London. The event consisted of a panel discussion regarding policy brokerage, and a round table discussion with over forty UPEN representatives and four external guests on ideas and priorities for international policy brokerage.
On 23rd of May, David Melding, Shadow Minister for Housing, Heritage, Culture & Media in Wales hosted the Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN) Day in Cardiff. In the session members learned about the experience of the Wales Centre for Public Policy in policy evidence brokerage and also learned about policy engagement in the Welsh context.
On 25th of March, the Universities Policy Engagement Network hosted a UPEN day at the University of Southampton. Over 17 universities/UPEN members were present and they all productively discussed training and how to further advance evidence in policymaking.
On 11th of February 2019, UPEN met with Go-Science, Department for Work & Pensions and the Department of Health and Social Care in London. The Go-Science team introduced ARIs and their future vision, and at the subsequent meetings we discussed the specific ARIs of the two departments.
On 27th of November, the Parliamentary Office of Science & Technology (POST) hosted a network of UK universities to discuss how UK Parliament and academia can work together to enable greater user of scientific evidence in policy making.
Parliamentary Contribution
Are committees getting the right evidence? What barriers are there to select committees getting the information they need? This submission is from the Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN), a network of UK universities who are working together to improve dialogue between academics and policymakers and to increase the public policy impact from their institutions research portfolios. Read the full blog here.
UPEN has received various calls from different government departments and organisations during its first year. These include the Royal Society, the Department for Work & Pensions, the Department for Education, the Department of Health & Social Care, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology and the Foods Standards Agency.
