{"id":2001,"date":"2011-09-26T11:58:53","date_gmt":"2011-09-26T16:58:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/articles\/\/"},"modified":"2016-02-29T11:55:18","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T16:55:18","slug":"key-principles-to-guide-policy-influence-and-research-uptake-a-synthesis-of-an-interesting-discussion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/articles\/key-principles-to-guide-policy-influence-and-research-uptake-a-synthesis-of-an-interesting-discussion\/","title":{"rendered":"Key principles to guide policy influence and research uptake: a synthesis of an interesting discussion"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago,\u00a0Jeff\u00a0Knezovich\u00a0shared a few\u00a0principles of policy influence and research uptake<\/a>. In search of stories and examples of influence in policies I\u2019ve re-read this debate and found it, again, very interesting. I think it is worth wrapping up the discussion and giving a few conclusions.<\/p>\n

The Principles<\/h2>\n

The principles: Country driven, Two-way process, Objective led, Embedded in the research process, ‘Being there’, Accessible, Operating in complex environments, Reflective and adaptive, Internal and external. The\u00a0hot<\/em>principles that made more noise in this discussion were \u201cbeing there\u201d<\/strong>,\u201d\u00a0accessibility\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0and \u201ccountry driven\u201d<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0\u2018being there\u2019<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0approach divided the waters into a more \u201ctechnical\/on line communications\u201d debate and a more conceptual discussion. The technical group discussed (or better, shared knowledge) on what are the best channels for on-line communications, the difficulties of measuring the new ones – which we have much less control, such as Facebook, Twitter and posts in other sites.\u00a0Andrew Clappison<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Nick Scott<\/a>\u00a0exchanged some concerns, difficulties, ideas and pros and cons of some tools such as\u00a0Hootsuit<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Google Analytics<\/a>. For further discussion Nick suggested to visit the\u00a0‘being there’ online communications for On Think Tanks<\/a>\u00a0which already has Part I and II and it has been published on ebpdn last week. It covers what ODI’s experiences – both good and bad. It also outlines how Nick has created a dashboard tool for ODI to collect statistics from those multiple sources as a first attempt to try and bring some order to ODI\u2019s statistics and create a space for intelligent analysis of online communications. We will probably keep on learning a lot on this important topic.<\/p>\n

The other group had a more \u201cconceptual\u201d discussion since this principle takes another (similar) meaning when we think of off-line communications.\u00a0Francisco Perez<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Enrique Mendizabal\u00a0both agreed on the importance of talking face to face to those we want to communicate with. This is a huge challenge for ‘international’ initiative. Not just because the audiences \/ publics are not there with you in your office in London or Washington but because to talk to people face to face in a meaningful way one needs a lot more preparation than we tend to plan for: you cannot just fly in and expect to get anywhere (Enrique). This argument is also linked to the other\u00a0hot principles<\/em>:\u00a0accessibility\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0country driven.<\/strong><\/p>\n

No surprise these principles\u00a0<\/strong>made so much noise. There is a huge concern on how international organisations are approaching these principles and some questions came up on this debate:<\/p>\n

Do [IO]\u00a0\u00a0consider that in developing countries the majority of the people live in the village where power, newspaper, internet, television and radio is not fully accessible to majority? The strategy of country driven sounds good but what do you mean by country driven? By the government, NGOs or people from the grassroots level? The words country driven may be a good slogan but in reality is not applicable because some donors, NGOs and government (politicians) have different priorities as well as personal interests which do not put into consideration people’s priorities and best interests.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These questions also brought to the table the complexity of influencing policies. A shared concern by Andrew and Enrique was if whether the work of all of these organisations should be to try to set\/inform the agendas \u00adrather than change this or that policy. Andrew says that perhaps we should be far more frank and realistic about \u2018influence\u2019 and focus a lot more on the next rung on the ladder down (i.e. interest groups\/civil society and others)???<\/p>\n

This is a complex discussion and by no means is going to bring an answer here but the debate itself is enriching and makes us stop for a moment in our busy lives to reflect and think about our job. By exchanging ideas, we try to improve the influence in policies, so thanks to all of you who have participated in this debate. Some conclusion came up to try to improve the utility of these principles:<\/p>\n