Blogs
Progress and Barriers to Disability Policy at the United Nations
Drawing from her experience as a United Nations Delegate for the Commission on the Status of Women, University of Cambridge and British Library PhD student, Kirstie Stage, reflects on the progress and barriers to developing disability policy in national and international settings. The blog explores the importance of building communities and the interconnectedness of disability policy with other realms, and offers insights into how greater inclusivity can be achieved.
The ‘evidence mosaic’: helping parliamentary committees understand complex issues through Areas of Research Interest
Areas of Research Interest (ARIs) are lists of policy issues or questions that can be used by parliamentary committees to invite research evidence for decision making. They are designed to build dialogue between researchers and policymakers, providing a new mechanism to broaden the research evidence submitted to parliamentary committees and the expertise available to them.
In this blog, Hannah Johnson (Knowledge Exchange Lead, Welsh Parliament/Senedd Cymru) discusses how the use of ARIs has helped to encourage diversity in the evidence submitted to the Senedd committees, encouraging new perspectives to inform scrutiny and law-making.
This work has been developed in collaboration with CAPE policy fellow, Rob Davies. This is Rob’s second CAPE fellowship, and it builds on his previous experiences of developing ARIs with UK Parliament Select Committees.
Reflection: CAPE Fellowship to Support Digital Skills in Nottingham
Moving from a policy-focused environment to a university setting can offer both challenges and rewards. In this blog, CAPE policy fellow, Laura Koch (from Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities) provides a reflection on her latest policy fellowship, highlighting how exposure to new settings and perspectives as part of the experience has influenced her own approach to policymaking.
Interconnecting islands: evolving the research policy ecosystem
When we think of the current research-policy ecosystem in the UK, what image does it conjure? Some may picture an archipelago; islands of research-policy engagement initiatives separated by surrounding waters. What if we could better connect these islands so that resources can be shared and communities can learn from each other more easily?
CAPE team members reflect on the key insights that emerged from a workshop that sought to explore the development of a more mature engagement ecosystem.
A typology and discussion of interactions between CAPE academic policy engagement mechanisms
CAPE has been running for two years now, and in that time we have observed interactions between our policy engagement mechanisms which we did not necessarily anticipate at the outset. We’ve developed a typology of these interactions which we hope can provide valuable insights into how having multiple, connected project mechanisms can support academic-policy engagement.
Collaboratively and at scale: lending CAPE’s experience to the challenge of describing knowledge mobilisation
Across Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and in policy domains, there has been increased support for and investment in knowledge mobilisation activities and roles. At a time in which funding decision makers and awardees need to evidence the value of investments, questions arise: what is knowledge mobilisation, what does it do and why does it need investing in? Through our work in CAPE, we are seeking to contribute insight into the ways that academic policy engagement is enacted through knowledge mobilisation. We reflect on what our experience of knowledge mobilisation practice collaboratively and at scale tells us, and why a deeper appreciation of the way it works at systemic levels might be useful for the sector as it develops.
Applying for co-production funding in academic policy engagement: lessons from the CAPE Collaboration Fund
From September 2021 – April 2022 we ran three funding calls for our CAPE Collaboration Fund and awarded £400,000 for co-production projects between academics and policy partners. While our projects are ongoing, we explore what we funded, what made for strong applications, and share our recommendations for writing an application for a collaborative project with policy professionals.
Why are knowledge exchange events in academic policy engagement so important?
Many of us run knowledge exchange events to support academic policy engagement, but can we articulate easily why and how they are important? Following a CAPE Sharing Session, we reflect on what we learnt about what works when running knowledge exchange activities.
Improving learning opportunities for policy engagement: lessons from the CAPE consortium
Gigi Tennant and Kuranda Morgan from CAPE partner Nesta, who lead our training workstream, share their reflections on what they’ve learnt about how to improve training and learning provision for academics who are engaging with policy