Co-producing Policy-Understanding Government

More than a month since the April workshop and preparations are currently underway for July, when the second workshop in the 'Co-producing Cultural Policy' project will take place, on the theme of cultural value. This has given me a chance to reflect on the first event and to think about how we might sustain the life of the project beyond the end-date, through the development of resources follow-up events etc. I recently attended a Collaborative Skills Development networking event for award holders, which was really useful for sharing ideas and best practice. I've also been thinking about potential link-ups through the AHRC, since policy engagement seems to be an area of longstanding interest for them.

For example, in 2012/13, the AHRC's pilot course, ‘Understanding Government: An Arts and Humanities Perspective’, ran in partnership with The Institute for Government. Designed to provide an insight into the policy making process and help doctoral students consider ways in which Arts and Humanities researchers can contribute to government and policy through research, its stated aims were:   

• To provide a basic framework for understanding how government works.
• To demonstrate how Arts and Humanities can contribute to government and policy through research.

I spoke with one of the participants to gain an insight into discussions that happened during the course. Here's an overview of the key themes:

The course was an opportunity for researchers to engage with senior civil servants, who are interested in:

• Engaging with academics.
• Finding evidence on which to base policy.
• Using evidence to back up policy initiatives.

Central Government are primarily interested in quantitative data, job creation and economic benefit.

What participants took away from the workshop was information about ways to get in touch with policy makers (networks of personal contacts, all party parliamentary groups, speculative approaches).

Researchers want to be able to provide answers but there's no guaranteed route to success.

Policy makers see things in very black and white terms (not grey) - wanting something that can be signed off on.

There's a disparity between academic drivers (rigor, complexity) and policy drivers (instrumental, strong clear messages).

We also spoke about the sort of resources or approaches that might be beneficial for participants of the 'Co-producing Cultural Policy' project. Preliminary ideas include:

• Info about parallel career tracks for PhDs and ECRs.
• Toolkit for putting discussion into action, how to be influential.