UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) – The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (ESRC) – have contracted the Institute for Methods Innovation and its partners to support academic researchers at post-doctoral level and above, based within UK universities and Independent Research Organisations (IROs), to develop the knowledge and skills that will enable them to engage effectively with public policy.
As the Policy Impact Trainers Consortium, the Institute for Methods Innovation, Fast Track Impact and Walcott Communications Limited will be providing training and skills developmentin public policy engagement to academic researchers in the environmental and social sciences.
The aims of the project are to:
– Enhance capacity and capability in the environmental and social sciences academic research community (at post-doctoral level and above) to engage effectively with public policy at a range of levels (from the local and regional scale to the devolved administration and UK Government scale).
– Build a network of environmental and social sciences researchers with the skills and interests to engage effectively with policy.
– Gather evidence for the impact of environmental and social science research on public policy.
By the end of the training, participants will be equipped with knowledge and understanding of government, policy-making, regulating and legislating, including the complexities involved in creating a successful policy, and the challenges for researchers in engaging with policy-makers, regulators, legislators and the policy- making process.
NERC is the driving force of investment in environmental science in the UK. The organisation seeks to advance the frontier of environmental science by commissioning new research, infrastructure and training that delivers valuable scientific breakthroughs.
ESRC is the UK’s largest funder of economic, social, behavioural and human data science. Economic, social and behavioural research provides an integrated approach to understanding how society interacts at every level, from the individual to whole systems and from the local to the global.
