How Should Academics Engage in Policymaking to Achieve Impact?
| Author | Kathryn Oliver,Paul Cairney |
| Published date | 01 May 2020 |
| Date | 01 May 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929918807714 |
| Subject Matter | Special Section: Impact |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929918807714
Political Studies Review
2020, Vol. 18(2) 228 –244
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929918807714
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How Should Academics Engage
in Policymaking to Achieve
Impact?
Paul Cairney1 and Kathryn Oliver2
Abstract
This article reviews the advice from the academic and ‘grey’ literatures to identify a list of dos and
don’ts for academics seeking ‘impact’ from their research. From ‘how to do it’ sources, we identify
consistent advice on how to engage effectively, largely because it is necessarily vague, safe, and
focused primarily on individuals. We then consider the wider policymaking system in which actors
make political choices and have unequal access to impact opportunities. We identify the effort it
takes to have actual policy impact and how far academics should be expected to go to secure and
take credit for it.
Keywords
impact, grey literature, evidence-based policymaking, policy engagement, co-production
Accepted: 21 September 2018
Introduction
Academics are under increasing pressure to engage with policymakers, practitioners,
publics, and traditional and social media. However, they face major ethical, personal, and
practical dilemmas about if, when, and how to engage to influence policy. Furthermore,
the positive and negative effects of such engagement, from workplace promotion to per-
sonal intimidation and social media abuse, are not experienced equally. In that context,
there has been an explosion of activity, on the theme of dos and don’ts for academics, but
with no guarantee that ‘one best way’ to engage for policy impact will ever emerge.
What does the currently available advice add up to? Does it produce consistent mes-
sages that can be organised into key general themes for all academics, with the potential
to be tailored for political studies researchers in a straightforward way? Or, is the advice
based on narrow points of view from specific individuals or disciplines that are not rele-
vant to political studies? Does it help academics secure meaningful ‘impact’ or merely
1Division of History and Politics, University of Stirling, Stirling, UK
2Faculty of Public Health Policy, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK
Corresponding author:
Paul Cairney, Division of History and Politics, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, UK.
Email: p.a.cairney@stir.ac.uk
807714PSW0010.1177/1478929918807714Political Studies ReviewCairney and Oliver
research-article2018
Special Issue Article
Cairney and Oliver 229
help them play the game and describe enough impact activity to satisfy their employers
and funders?
To help answer such questions, we first draw on systematic reviews of two sources
of general advice on impact: (1) peer-reviewed articles by scientists describing their
experiences of the ‘barriers’ between evidence and policy (Oliver et al., 2014a) and (2)
the ‘grey’ literature, in which there is a rich source of reports and blogs by experienced
researchers, practitioners and policymakers (Oliver and Cairney, submitted). From
these sources, we can identify fairly consistent advice that is relevant to political stud-
ies scholars. For example, most accounts emphasise the need for short, concise, and
freely available reports in plain language, to counter a tendency towards inaccessible
jargon-filled articles behind a paywall. Further, many encourage more face-to-face con-
tact with policymakers and practitioners, to help us understand and tailor our research
to our audience, while some advocate the greater use of blogs and a professional social
media presence.
While such advice seems sensible, it is not informed routinely by policy studies or
political science accounts of the relationship between evidence and policy (Cairney,
2016). Consequently, there is a problematic tendency to produce advice that is too gen-
eral, on the assumption that advice applicable to one type of scientist is applicable to them
all; too ‘safe’, without exploring the politics of engagement; and, too reliant on a linear
idea of impact in which there is a direct relationship between activity and outcome. Social
science accounts question the idea that academics can apply such generic advice to have
such a direct effect on policy and policymaking (Boswell and Smith, 2017). Rather,
game-playing Universities use this understanding to tell an overly heroic story of indi-
vidual academics (Dunlop, 2018; see also Moran and Browning, 2018). It is important to
separate some general, sensible, ‘how to’ advice regarding activities like clear communi-
cation and networking from the more specific and challenging advice – regarding con-
cepts such framing and coalition-forming – that we would associate with political activity
and derive from actual studies of evidence-informed policy change (Cairney and
Kwiatkowski, 2017). Indeed, it would be ironic if political studies academics restricted
themselves to the safe but often low-impact or unreflective strategies recommended by
their peers in other disciplines.
Therefore, to challenge and help improve the ‘how to’ advice–found predominantly in
the ‘grey’ literature and periodically in peer reviewed ‘barriers’ studies–we identify the
ways in which academic political science and policy studies raise key issues and frame
more fundamental questions. First, the ‘how to’ literature focuses on individuals or organi-
sations, such as when recommending concise reports and a social media profile. Policy
studies focus more on policymaking systems and the difficulties of separating the effect of
individual action from systemic effects. Effective actors, in such systems, tend to invest for
the long term to, for example, become part of larger coalitions and learn how to frame evi-
dence in relation to the beliefs of their audience. Second, few sources of advice address ethi-
cal or political dilemmas regarding, for example, variations in the power and vulnerability
of researchers when they engage in politics and policy. Key issues can range from the line
we think we can draw between evidence framing and manipulation (Cairney and Oliver,
2017), the balance between tailoring advice and pandering to the ideology of our audience
(Cairney, 2018a), and the extent to which Universities can expect academics to engage on
social media when they know that some may be listened to less but abused more.
Third, these issues intersect with systemic issues regarding what it really takes to have
policy impact. Put most strongly would we expect academics to engage for the length of
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