Nicola Buckley and Kathryn Oliver
This blog post is based on the Evidence & Policy article, ‘Evaluating Policy to Research Fellowship programmes’.
Policy to Research (P2R) Fellowship programmeshave been found toforge connections and relationships between policymakers and researchers in academia and beyond, develop skills and knowledge among policymakers and researchers and can develop collaborative projects.
In our Evidence and Policy paper, we found 24 P2R Policy Fellowship programmes to study, from the UK, Europe and North America. The cost of providing these fellowships was estimated at around £5,000 per Policy Fellow, which is comparable to, or in some cases less than other methods for academic-policy engagement (e.g. workshops, training, Research to Policy Fellowships, funding research collaborations). More evaluations are needed to understand the role these Fellowships can play in developing the evidence-for-policy system.
We decided to conduct this research because Policy Fellowships, which offer mobility and knowledge exchange opportunities in two directions (researchers taking up secondments in policy organisations; and policy officials spending time in research organisations), have grown in scale in recent years. The two types can be described as ‘Research to Policy’ (R2P) Fellowships; and ‘Policy to Research’ (P2R) Fellowships. Both types have been invested in, to support overall goals of research-policy engagement and the advancement of evidence-informed policy.
Focusing on P2R Policy Fellowships enabled disaggregating these types of Fellowships from the R2P Fellowships, and for key characteristics of 24 of these programmes from the UK, Europe and North America to be described and categorised. We identified three main sub-types of programmes:
- A period of secondment (with examples from 3 months – 1 year; part-time or full-time), sometimes applied for as a competitive opportunity, for a policy official or other professional with policy experience to spend as an affiliate with an academic/research organisation, exchanging knowledge with researchers and students and with time for research.
- A professional development and structured networking opportunity based on policy officials’ questions (with an initial short period of time at a research organisation, e.g. 5 days), matching with academic researchers for 1:1 and small group meetings. After an intensive period of bespoke meeting organisation for the Policy Fellow at the host institution/s, a period of affiliation (typically up to 2 years) forms part of the programme, during which follow-on activities and connection with other Policy Fellows are encouraged and organised.
- A few broader programmes in the study are not restricted to P2R Fellowships, but can enable that type of learning opportunity within a wider Fellowship programme (which may be open to industry and civil society Fellows as well as policy officials).
By breaking down P2R Fellowship programmes into these sub-types, and using published information as well as asking programme managers to provide information on costs of programmes, it was possible to start addressing some value for money questions to be factored into evaluation frameworks. Costs may be paid by the employer of a Policy Fellow (either paid to a research organisation or by meeting salary costs while a Policy Fellow is on secondment), by a grant supporting evidence-policy interactions or by Policy Fellows themselves. Where it was possible in the dataset to divide the upper end of a cost estimate by the number of Policy Fellows taking part each year, the costs per Policy Fellow in the study came out on average in a range between £5,000 and £5,500.
Beyond ultimate goals of the programmes (which included for example, the ‘responsible development and management of new technologies’ or ‘development of evidence-informed policy’), the three most common proximate goals of the programmes could be identified as to:
- Forge connections and relationships between policymakers and researchers (and to sustain a network over time).
- Develop skills and knowledge among policymakers and researchers.
- Develop collaborative projects between policymakers and researchers.
Less commonly, these two types of objectives feature:
- Provide opportunities for policymakers to carry out research with academic input.
- Enable policymakers to contribute to or inform teaching of students.
There is a lack of robust evaluation evidence about P2R Fellowships, although we were provided with published or internal-only evaluations by five out of the 24 programmes contacted and examples of outputs and outcomes from P2R Fellowships are shared. These range from Policy Fellows producing ‘solutions-focused reports’ to Fellows reporting on policy developments in their organisations which have been informed by expert meetings and collaborations.
We suggest an approach to assessing the possible initiation and running of P2R Fellowships which considers:
- What is the ultimate and proximal goal(s) of this Fellowship?
- What activities will deliver this goal? Are we selecting the most effective activities to achieve these outcomes?
- What are the costs associated with this Fellowship scheme? How do these compare with alternative ways of achieving the same outcomes?
We recommend mixed methods evaluation research, including prospective, pre- and post- and ideally long-term follow-up study designs to capture how different Fellowship schemes impact on individual, organisational and policy outcomes.
The research was supported by the Capabilities in Academic Policy Engagement (CAPE) project, funded by Research England.
Image credit: Photo by Clint Adair on Unsplash
Nicola Buckley is Director of Fellowships and Networks at the Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge. She manages academic-policy engagement programmes. Nicky was seconded for a year to the Knowledge Exchange Unit in the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) to help Select Committees in UK Parliament generate Areas of Research Interest. Nicky is also one of the Vice-Chairs of the Universities Policy Engagement Network.
Professor Kathryn Oliver is Professor of Evidence and Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She is interested in how evidence is made, mobilised and used in policy and practice. She co-directs the research collaboration Transforming Evidence, which brings together funders, decision-makers, practitioners and researchers. She was a Fellow for three years in the UK Government Office for Science, exploring how evidence knowledge needs are articulated and acted on by central government.
Read the original research in Evidence & Policy:
Buckley, N. & Oliver, K. (2024). Evaluating Policy to Research Fellowship programmes. Evidence & Policy, DOI: 10.1332/17442648Y2024D000000023.
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