Many think tanks are home to\u00a0many voices. When encountering a new think tank, one of the first questions I ask, is whether the organisation has a single voice or many voices: when a researcher puts forward a proposal, is this proposal the researcher\u2019s or the think tank\u2019s?<\/p>\n
More than often the answer is that the think tank is plural and open to the very different views of their researchers. So the proposals are made by the researchers \u2026 from the think tank, but not on behalf of all the researchers\u2026 it can get confusing.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, this\u00a0can be\u00a0explained by the origin of these organisations: university research centres, civic associations, research consultancies, etc. Their evolution has had to\u00a0allow for the incorporation of different ideological strains (which may not constitute important variations) that tend to grow and shrink\u00a0with the passing of years and the natural ebb and flow of political and ideological cycles.<\/p>\n
A recent case in Peru reminded me of this issue and got me thinking about a model that could \u2018work\u2019 for think tanks that are and want to remain plural. But more importantly, that still want to have an impact.<\/p>\n
Here is the case. A university based think tank produced a study on the national pension system (Peru has\u00a0a combination of public and private providers but contributions are mandatory). I won\u2019t go into the details of the proposal but the basic idea was that mandatory contributions should be abolished and instead a future universal basic pension should be paid for from general taxes and that if people wanted an additional pension then they should be free to choose whatever pension-savings product or strategy they wished.<\/p>\n
Needless to say the private pension providers were not happy about this. And nor were many researchers and think tanks who hold an entirely different view. And many of these researchers were based at the think tank that published the report.<\/p>\n
The presentation of the study was something to be seen\u00a0-it is also one of the events that encouraged me to write about\u00a0how to produce events<\/a>. I couldn\u2019t make it to the venue so I watched it online. Some of the fiercest reactions came from within the think tank, itself. Critique, however, missed the main ideas and focused on the assumptions, on the data and, even, on the researchers themselves. I had to Google\u00a0logical fallacies<\/a>\u00a0just to keep up.<\/p>\n But the study reignited\u00a0a debate that had been dormant. It had made the headlines a few months prior, after another think tank challenged the system, but it cooled off. Then it came alive again with this study. But it has cooled off again. Almost immediately.<\/p>\n Not much has been heard from the think tank in question about this issue, either. After the fierce reaction against their study, whatever ideas it may have had to communicate the findings and recommendations appear to have been put on hold. Who could blame them?<\/p>\n The thing is that something similar happened last year. Another study, on an entirely different topic (this time related to the country\u2019s social policy), enjoyed an initial media boost followed by a wave of criticism -even from within. And in that case, too, the debate that had been generated quickly died off.<\/p>\n A few weeks ago, however, colleagues working in the social policy sector and deep within government confided that the study on social policy that was attacked so fiercely last year had been “sort of right” all along. It is a shame, they said, that it had been\u00a0allowed to be obscured.<\/p>\n The point is that this kind of reaction is, and should be expected. It is good, in fact. We do not want everyone to agree all the time. But there is a need to find a way of taking advantage of that disagreement and turning it into something positive and constructive.<\/p>\n This is a likely scenario, especially when dealing with issues of great political and economic interest. It is also not something that think tanks should avoid. Rocking the boat is one of the most important roles think tanks can play in a society. If they only went for safe bets we\u2019d all be worst-off.<\/p>\n So what do to? What I propose is a modified initiative model (so\u00a0CGD\u2019s lessons learned<\/a>\u00a0paper should be a must read). Instead of developing an initiative to pursue the think tank\u2019s solution to the policy problem, the modified initiative is developed to pursue a solution (any solution) to the problem.\u00a0The difference is small but it has potentially big implications.<\/p>\n One of the important roles of think tanks is the formation and nurturing of spaces for debate. This is particularly relevant for think tanks that are plural in nature. They themselves are, already, spaces for debate. All they need to do now is make those spaces and debates public.<\/p>\n This happens already but I think few think tanks focus their attention and that of their audiences on key specific policy objectives.<\/p>\n The case of the pension reform study followed a rather traditional research to policy approach:<\/p>\n The drivers of a process\u00a0like this are usually the researchers -in this case, researchers with a very keen eye for the policy agenda as they surely anticipated it. This means, however,\u00a0that if they move on to other things (or if they choose to take a step back from it all) the general aim of policy influence may be lost in a sort of no-man\u2019s land.<\/p>\n An initiative, on the other hand, would have picked-up on the last step and placed it at its core. It would have worked backwards from the question of: ‘what do we need to do to change this?’ and possibly done lots more research, engaged in communications, capacity building, lobbying, etc. In an initiative, ownership is shared between various people with responsibility for research, management and communications, but the leadership is held by a policy entrepreneur. Someone who believes in the solution and wants to see it make a difference; now, in a few months, whenever.<\/p>\n In the traditional case, a think tank cannot possible host two \u2018conflicting\u2019 initiatives. You could not have an organisation that backed private pension only model and\u00a0a public pension only model at the same time.<\/p>\n In the modified version of the initiative that I propose, however, this \u2018conflict\u2019 is possible; it is, in fact, desirable.<\/p>\n In the modified version, the objectives become less specific. They are based on more fundamental ideas that everyone\u00a0would be OK\u00a0with. For instance, \u201cEliminate Child Poverty.\u201d Who could be against this? Or, \u201cHave a fair pension system.\u201d Again, who could say, \u201cNo, I do not want a fair pension system\u201d?<\/p>\n These objectives are sufficiently\u00a0catch-all<\/em>\u00a0to get the process rolling. They also open a new and important (in fact, I think that this is fundamental) line of thinking: we need to stop assuming we all mean the same thing all the time. Eliminating child poverty may sound like something everyone will be in favour of but poverty is not defined by all in the same way. A fair system? For whom? Defined how?<\/p>\n Unlike the initiative or the typical research project, this model starts with and focuses on\u00a0the space. What this initiative is doing is creating the space from where the best ideas will emerge. It may be an\u00a0idea that the think tank hosting the space will develop and put forward. It may be an idea that takes bits from different ideas, own and borrowed. And it may even be some other think tank\u2019s idea. Or even some other party’s idea: an NGO, a business leader, a trade union, intellectuals, the government, etc.<\/p>\n It does not matter. The idea will emerge from this initiative to find a solution to child poverty or to design a fairer pension system. That is what matters.<\/p>\n The concept of\u00a0open innovation<\/a>\u00a0is not new -yet few think tanks have embraced it. Few think tanks would ever publish or feature the work of others on their websites. Few, too, would want to organise an event which featured a researcher from another think tank rather than their own. Many think tanks even have policies that demand that their researchers need to be the main authors of papers they publish -even if they didn\u2019t even do they work themselves. This misses the point of a think tank as the source of ideas.<\/p>\n Some of the best think tanks in the world spend quite a bit of time looking for people and ideas to make their own. Take the case of\u00a0FORMA<\/a>, for instance. The Center for Global Development developed the idea but World Resources Institute has taken it forward as\u00a0Global Forest Monitoring (GFW)<\/a>.<\/p>\n As much as we would like to think that we have the best ideas about the issues we are passionate and expert about, the chances are that there are others out there that could\u00a0have better ideas. I spend more time than most thinking about think tanks but the best ideas on communications that\u00a0I have published have come from people like\u00a0Nick Scott<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Jeff Knezovich<\/a>, the best ideas on funding are from\u00a0Goran Buldioski<\/a>\u00a0or more recently\u00a0Gjergji Vurmo<\/a>, and\u00a0Hans Gutbrod<\/a>\u2018s work on transparency is far better than anything I\u2019ve come up with after years of looking into it. I draw from them in my own work. I\u2019d be foolish not to.<\/p>\n Well, by embracing open innovation, think tanks can embrace the idea that it is possible that the solution to child poverty may be in another think tank, in an NGO, deep within the public system in some long forgotten public servant\u2019s notebook (this is what\u00a0Guerilla Policy<\/a>\u00a0assumed when it decided to work with the implementors of policy), or in the musings of a blogger. A fair pension system could just as well be designed by a post-doc on pension systems as by a graduate student struggling over his or her thesis.<\/p>\n So the think tank needs to focus on what might work. This means planning not one but a few studies -quite possibly, allowing the different \u2018factions\u2019 within its plural research cadre to team up. It means inviting others to join -directly by joining their \u2018competing\u2019 research teams or inviting them to put forward their own.<\/p>\n But it also means that research must respond to the need to foster and nurture a public debate over a long period of time.<\/p>\n It cannot be: \u201cgo away for 6 months to do research and then come and let us know what you think.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, it has to be: \u201cgo and do research but keep updating us of your progress through frequent tweets, blogs, media articles or op-eds, research drafts, and by participating in the debates generated by the updates and presentations by others.\u201d<\/p>\n This is particularly important in view of the findings of a recent study on\u00a0Solution Aversion by Duke University<\/a>\u00a0that has shown that people are likely to challenge the existence of a problem if they disagree with the solutions presented to them. So it is much better for a think tank to come up with a few options from a few different ideological points of view than just one.<\/p>\n Communications professionals<\/a>\u00a0always tell us that think tanks have to work hard to be (and continue to be)\u00a0a\u00a0trusted source of information.<\/p>\n Journalists<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0policymakers<\/a>\u00a0echo this.<\/p>\n So it works well to be a trusted source of all ideas on a particular issue. Journalists and policymakers will find it easier to trust a think tank if they know that calling on them will give them access to all available views and not just one.<\/p>\n The media and policymakers are naturally sceptical of think tanks. They should be, after all, it is their job to question the advice they receive. It works well, then, when think tanks provide them with options. It certainly helps policymakers who need options to make more informed decisions.<\/p>\n But it is also easier, period.<\/p>\n Another lesson we have learnt already is that it is much easier to influence when the issue you are working on is \u2018on the agenda\u2019. So for many think tanks, \u2018getting an issue onto the agenda<\/a>\u2018 is as good as it gets. This is their main objective.<\/p>\n But getting an issue on the agenda is only half the problem. Once it is there you have to keep it there. And for that you need something new! Newspapers won\u2019t pay too much attention to\u00a0\u00a0your 5th call about a new repackaging of your first report. But they will be interested in the presentation of a 5th policy option; especially if it promises to challenge one or more of the previous ones.<\/p>\n You also have a better chance of keeping an issue on the agenda if the initiative produces lots of content: intermediate and final outputs. It is not enough to publish a single report every six months or a year. Research plans, updates, op-eds, events, blog posts, and other\u00a0communication tools\u00a0<\/a>are all important.<\/p>\n All think tanks are under pressure to demonstrate their value. Whoever is asking, they have to be seen to be relevant. This is a great strategy to be relevant even when they do not have anything new to say or publish. Even if the policy solution that is eventually adopted came from another source, the think tank, through this kind of initiative, could still claim a share of the influence -a very significant share, in fact.<\/p>\n These are much larger efforts, of course, but not necessarily more expensive. They demand, first, a shift in the attention that hitherto forgotten aspects of a research project often get.<\/p>\n More resources will have to go into communications and the organisation of debates. More will need to be allocated to initial planning stages.\u00a0These initiatives need leaders that are \u2018beyond\u2019 one or another policy option. These are initiative managers who can convene and nurture all policy options.\u00a0Simon Maxwell\u2019s policy entrepreneur<\/a>\u00a0description should be used to hire them.<\/p>\n All of this may be seen by researchers as an imposition and a loss of power; but should be interpreted as greater freedom to focus on research rather than management and communications.<\/p>\n In the end, researchers should have more time to generate more ideas and, crucially if you think this will be more expensive, more income for the organisation. So it should pay for itself.<\/p>\n There is also a special kind of cooperation that is necessary. Think tanks might find it hard to go at it alone -even if they are large and plural enough. After all, these are much larger and complex projects than traditional research projects or even traditional initiatives. They may have to partner with their \u2018competitors\u2019 to design and implement these initiatives. This kind of cooperation could be labeled: \u201ccooperation in fundraising and competition on ideas<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n The usual approach that funders follow when confronted with broad objectives like \u201ceradicating child poverty\u201d (MDG-like objectives) is to fund one organisation to do research on how to do it in each country and then fund\u00a0them (and others) to promote their recommendations. They think that funding two or more organisations to do the same research is overlapping and wasteful. But in not doing so they fail to recognise that public policy recommendations are never scientifically water-proof; nor are they politically neutral. (DFID Zambia has taken a different approach through the Zambian Economic advocacy Programme<\/a>.)<\/p>\n They also miss the point of\u00a0evidence based policy.\u00a0The point is that policymakers can use evidence to help make up their minds about tackling different challenges and adopting different courses of action. To be informed properly, they need options. One piece of research should never be enough.<\/p>\n By funding efforts that purposely seek different options -and then bring them together to challenge each other on the merits of the ideas that underpin them- policy research funders would be supporting more transformative and sustainable outcomes. Not just policy change, but also change in the way that policy is done and in the context in which this happens.<\/p>\n This is being done already. There are several models that could be adopted and adapted by plural think tanks keen to pursue this.<\/p>\nA new model for influence -even if it\u2019s not your idea<\/h2>\n
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The objectives<\/h3>\n
The focus of the strategy: the space<\/h3>\n
Open innovation<\/h3>\n
Not one but many proposals to find what works<\/h3>\n
Benefits<\/h3>\n
Costs<\/h3>\n
Existing approaches<\/h2>\n
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