In Brunel Public Policy’s event on routes to public policy engagement, our panel from across Brunel University of London shared their diverse stories on how they managed to engage with policymakers and deliver research impact through public policy.
Professor Gareth Taylor, Professor of Power Systems and Director of Brunel Interdisciplinary Power Systems highlighted the benefits and possibilities of joining working groups and advisory groups to achieve research impact with regulators and policymakers.
Dr Eleni Iacovidou, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Management and Director of Brunel Centre for Pollution Research and Policy, emphasised the importance and value of considering the policy context and information needs of policymakers when framing your research questions.
Professor Yiannis Karavias, Professor in finance, showed how he was able to capitalise on his research methods that provide metrics on interventions by applying this to a police intervention and effectively disseminating the results to a wide range of policy stakeholders.
Policy advisors from the Open Innovation Team, James Wardell and Iz Gurbuz, emphasised the importance of building relationships with a broad range of policymakers in order to increase the chances of making impact.
Audience reaction was very positive, illustrating how policy impact helps ensure that Brunel competes at the highest levels in research. Many attendees expressed new and renewed interest in promoting their work to policymakers, seeing policy briefs as a particularly effective tool.
See the full panel presentations and discussion with the chair (Dr Manu Savani) here