Java Grant
2024/06/20

Influencing Policy

Notes from presentation by Dr Sarah Bickerton & Dr Suzanne Woodward sarah.bickerton@auckland.ac.nz s.woodward@auckland.ac.nz

Research impact

Reasearch Impact Academy (Australia)

RIA Impact Logic Model

International School on Research Impact Assessment

Ten-point guidelines for an effective process of research impact assessment

things

Engagement

Barriers

The Policy Cycle (The Policy Process)

(Not a hard ruleset, an ideal model)

  1. Agenda Setting
  2. Polcy Formulation
  3. Decision Making (most narrow perspective point)
  4. Implimentation
  5. Evaluation (Back to 1) – Credit Curtis Warner

In reality, it’s intricate interpay back and forth between the steps. Evidence (our work) can fit into every step, but you don’t need to be everywhere. Find your space.

Whitepaper

(similar to a manifesto?) Blank sheet of paper that is used to propose a bunch of things. Fits into the first two steps best. Public document which often outlines and evaluations some options on the table.

Decisions making

  1. Who are the actors
  2. What are their interestes
  3. What constrains apply to the polcy problem
  4. What constrains apply to the solution

Implimentation

  1. Clear solution details
  2. Clear allocation of resources to organistaions
  3. Clear delegation of decision makign authority

Credit Jann and […]

Government Budget Cycle (Where in time should we set things up)

Electoral Cycle

NGO & Big-four Policy Influence

New Zealand doesn’t have a developed NGO sector like other western nations. We have a centralisation problem. This leads to a large reliance on ‘big four’ consulting firms.

Communication

Consider how to take blue-skies research to explict steps and reccomendations

How is data presented? Make it tell a story so the steps of implimentation make sense. How does the story get formed after the data is presented? (Visual components help)

UoA PPI creates policy briefings (good examples)

The Researcher’s Guide to Influencing Policy – Mark Reed

Fast Track Impact Planning Template (Mark Reed)

Impact goal Relevant parties Activities Impact indicators Impact risks Risk mitigation Organisational comments
Describe the benefit that will be delivered Name of organisation(s), group(s) or individual(s) who will benefit from these impacts, who may be able to help us to deliver impacts or who are interested in these impacts for other reasons (see your 3i analysis) Identify activities that could enable these parties to get the benefits described in the impact goal, or enable them to deliver these benefits for others What would success look like, and how would you capture this for communication to others? Identify indicators that you could measure (either qualitatively or quantitatively) to demonstrate that your impact goal(s) have been achieved Identify risks that could prevent impacts from being achieved and/or that could lead to negative unintentional consequences Explain how the identified risks can be mitigated Who will be responsible for delivering the impact goal? Identify any other organisational needs e.g. funding, training or other resources that may needed, and proposed initial actions and timings
Articulate your goal as specifically as possible. This can include goals of other organisations whose impacts we want to help achieve Write the name(s) here Write the activities here List relevant indicators and means of measurement here List risks, explaining the nature and magnitude of each risk Provide risk mitigation narrative here List anything else necessary to achieve the impact here
- - - - - - -

Discussion

Really interesting discussion on feeling hopeless in the face of large detrimnetal forces (e.g. economic dependancy on harmful products).

My thoughts

This workshop got me thinking about my research in terms of the policy cycle. I think the policy cycle provides a good framework for understanding the role of this project. Considering we know step 5 is well established re: the current insitutions – so now is time for Agenda Setting, Policy Formulation & Implimentation (Decision making less relevent because of the democratic and paticipatory nature of the research workshops), and then hopefully evaluation.

  1. Agenda Setting
  2. Polcy Formulation
  3. Decision Making (most narrow perspective point)
  4. Implimentation
  5. Evaluation