CAPE - Capabilities in Academic-Policy Engagement

📑We're pleased to be publishing today our latest resource for policy organisations: “Areas of Research Interest - A Practical Guide”. ❓ What are Areas of Research Interest? Areas of Research Interest (ARIs) are tools that help policy organisations understand their research priorities, address knowledge needs, and communicate more effectively with the academic community. They are public statements expressions of evidence needs. ❓ How can this guide help? Designed for policy professionals, our guide walks you through the stages of developing Areas of Research Interest, provides case studies from leading examples, and tips on how to use your Areas of Research Interest productively. Plus we provide some practical and flexible tools to use along the way. Find out more ➡️https://lnkd.in/euXvHpbV This guide was written by CAPE Policy Fellows Max French and Melissa Hawkins from Northumbria University and is part of CAPE's work to extend Areas of Research beyond Government Departments with input from Leeds City Council Newcastle City Council The North East Combined Authority Alex Black.

How UCL Public Policy has developed our fellowship programme in response to collaborating with, and absorbing learning from, CAPE - Capabilities in Academic-Policy Engagement ⤵️ Since 2011 UCL Public Policy has operated a Fellowships Programme, placing academics in policy organisations. When the CAPE programme started in 2020 it drew upon the UCL Public Policy programme as a model to launch a muti-university and scaled-up research to policy fellowship programme.   CAPE provided hard evidence on the value that fellowships deliver, proved there was policy and research demand, but just how resource intensive they are in nature to administer.  In 2023 UCL Public Policy welcomed Alice Tofts as our new Policy Fellowships coordinator which has given us increased capacity to support Fellowships and to build in deep learning from CAPE across UCL. As part of her role Alice led a review of CAPE fellowships, and published a toolkit "Research to Policy Fellowships: Six Pillars for Optimising Success" which is available for all staff at UCL and anyone else who is interested in a policy fellowship. Alice has also been leading a new Policy Fellowship Network for professional staff across UK universities who support Fellowships to share learnings across the growing community. Find out more about the Research to Policy Fellowships: Six Pillars for Optimising Success toolkit ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/e3yWvmSt.

📑New resource alert! Collaborative funding can be a valuable tool for stimulating engagement between researchers and policymakers. Our new toolkit, "Awarding Funding for Collaborative Academic-Policy Projects" supports greater understanding of the value of collaborative projects in academic-policy engagement, and how to set up a funding stream to make such awards. You’ll find practical advice and ready-to-use templates to help you: ✅ Integrate collaborative techniques into project design and delivery ✅ Understand what a good application to a collaborative funding scheme looks like ✅ Build a funding process, from applications to evaluation ✅ Develop tailored application forms and scoring criteria Download: https://lnkd.in/efDRRaem This toolkit is based on CAPE's experience of delivering the CAPE Collaboration Fund from 2020-23 in which we awarded £424,000 for 20 collaborative projects and was co-written by CAPE team members Robyn Parker Dr Olivia Stevenson Sarah Chaytor Rafael C. Hana Morel Daisy Forster from feedback from our collaboration funds awardees.

Areas of Research Interest (ARI) are public expressions from policy organisations of research priorities and evidence needs. Find out how CAPE has supported their use in Parliament, the Senedd, The Scottish Parliament and beyond. Featuring CAPE Policy Fellows Nicola Buckley, Rob D., team member Jenny Hasenfuss, and colleague Hannah Johnson, working across POST, UK Parliament, Senedd, The Scottish Parliament,The North East Combined Authority

New Event! The first session from the Government Office for Science will explore how they “put excellent scientific advice at the heart of decision making” for UK Government. In this event, you'll learn more about how GOS achieves their mission and the routes to engagement with government they support and advertise.   📍 21st Jan, 15:30 - 16:30 (Online)   https://lnkd.in/erxjApYH

For the past four years UCL Public Policy has led CAPE - Capabilities in Academic-Policy Engagement, a multi-partner project exploring what works in supporting engagement between universities and policy. At UCL we've used CAPE published toolkits to build critical policy engagement skills, knowledge and "know-how" with our researchers. We've delivered capabilities sessions across UCL, including with UCL Innovation & Enterprise and the UCL Faculty of Brain Sciences. Here's our top three CAPE resources we recommend for UCL academics and professional services staff: 1) Research to Policy Fellowships: Six Pillars for Optimising Success ➡️ to support placements of academics into policy organisations. 2) Developing partnerships & projects between universities and policy partners: a project scope template ➡️for academics to plan collaborative projects 3) Co-production in regional academic policy engagement: developing optimal conditions, produced with Co-Production Collective, UCL ➡️ for guidance on how to do co-production well with partners Link to all of CAPE resources: https://lnkd.in/e7kUms25 All CAPE resources remain accessible on the CAPE website after CAPE and are also available on the Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN) website. Rafael C. Robyn Parker Dr Olivia Stevenson Katherine W. Alice Tofts

💭“Our focus on collaboration proved a powerful enabler of engagement. It also served to help our project, and our institutions, to become more than the sum of our parts.” ⤵ In our latest essay, Why Collaboration is Critical in Academic-Policy Engagement, CAPE lead Sarah Chaytor explores the benefits of collaborating in a multi-institutional project and the ways in which we've embedded it. She suggests three approaches to support and strengthen collaborative approaches across our ecosystem: ✔️Sustainable and collaborative relationships with policy partners ✔️Building capacity for collaboration ✔️Multilateral approaches to academic-policy engagement ✔️Stronger coordination and collective convening across the academic-policy ecosystem Read in full ➡️ https://lnkd.in/ekFeUyje Too many collaborators to mention everyone in full here but our core CAPE team & partners: UCL Public Policy Policy@Manchester University of Nottingham Institute for Policy and Engagement Northumbria University Government Office for Science POST, UK Parliament Nesta

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is looking for a new Chief Scientific Adviser to lead on science advice for the Department. More information about this exciting role here: https://lnkd.in/e-CqCgHg

📑 New CAPE Report launched today: 'Improving Conditions in Islington - Tackling Work-Based Harms and Improving Unionisation'. The report highlights key employment issues that workers in Islington face, and how the council can partner with trade unions to address poor working conditions in their area.  Originating in a series of roundtables between CAPE and Islington Council on 'good work' in 2021, the project expanded to become a CAPE Policy Challenge Fund, which provided policy organisations with an opportunity to pose specific challenges for researchers to tackle. For this challenge CAPE & Islington Council partnered with academics Bob Jeffery (Sheffield Hallam University) and David Etherington (University of Staffordshire). 🫱🏼🫲🏾 For us, this project shows how researchers and local government can collaborate in order to respond to local challenges and underlines the value of longer-term exploratory relationships in academic-policy engagement. For the report, executive summary, and key stats document see ➡️https://lnkd.in/e59nDRvG

Sign up! 🆕 Join us to hear about the CAPE - Capabilities in Academic-Policy Engagement and Northumbria University report, ‘Areas of Research Interest: A Practical Guide’, on the key steps involved with taking an ARI from ambition to action and a roundtable discussion on using ARIs in policymaking and knowledge exchange. This event will be of relevance to anyone with an interest in ARIs, policy engagement, public service reform and the research-policy landscape. 🗓️ 10th December, 12-4.30pm 📍 In person at The Common Room, Newcastle Upon Tyne ✍️ https://lnkd.in/eX_im9ks