Making the most of university-policy engagement - five big takeaways from LEDC’s episode with Sarah Chaytor

David Marlow
Jun 13
6 min read

The critical role of universities in LED and placemaking is a recurring theme on LEDC – see our 2023 episode on with Louise Kempton of CURDS, Newcastle and our session with Peter O’Brien of Yorkshire Universities last year. This year’s episode, with Sarah Chaytor, co-founder and co-chair of the University-Policy Engagement Network (UPEN) and Director at UCL Research, Innovation and Global Engagement, takes the national policy scene as a starting point, rather than the local civic role. We discuss universities as primary knowledge anchors of policy development in the UK and how Government funding of UPEN aims to strengthen these roles and functions nationally and also, as Sarah makes clear, regionally, and locally. These are five of the key takeaways we believe the episode surfaces on how universities, as knowledge anchors, can collaborate increasingly purposefully in policy development for the big issues facing our cities, towns, and regions.

What is academic policy engagement in general and UPEN in particular?

Academic-policy engagement is about bridging the gap between the world of academic research, which often focuses on deep, long-term inquiry, and the world of policy which often requires timely, actionable insights to address immediate challenges. At its best, it is a two-way process involving policymakers and practitioners engaging with the research community about their needs for evidence-informed analysis, and the research community anticipating and responding to those needs accessibly and effectively.

Sarah describes Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN) as a collective of around 110 UK universities and policy experts, recently funded by UKRI, to make it easier to deliver university research influence and impact on public policy. It aims to provide a one stop shop for universities and policy organisations to access opportunities to strengthen evidence-informed policy making.

Which collaborative measures are on the university-policy engagement menu?

The UK Government employs a variety of mechanisms to tap into the vast knowledge and expertise residing within UK universities for public policy development and implementation. Some of this collaboration is increasingly common locally in instruments like Civic University Agreements – formal consultation, inquiries, fellowships and interns, advisory networks, and commissioned research. However, Government has tended to go further. It has cohorts of Chief Advisors – often drawn from academics. Formal departmental Areas of Research Interests (ARI) statements of demand for assistance set out their research and intelligence needs. Funding networks like UPEN to synthesise the collective knowledge of the sector, and the What Works Centres – which we explored in our episode with Henry Overman – recognise the merit in building enduring capacity for universities to discharge these roles.

Sarah explains how UPEN was established to address demand from Government for this type of synthesis of university knowledge. Beyond civic universities, regional arrangements like YPERN (in Yorkshire) and Insights North East (INE) are emerging – often on university initiative. The episode discusses how far Mayoral Combined Authorities might adopt some of the more sophisticated Government approaches to academic-policy engagement. They might even consider co-funding it as part of their core strategic and policy development infrastructure.

What are some of the barriers to more consistent and purposeful academic-policy engagement?

The episode recognises both demand and supply side concerns in this issue. Sarah explains that a major UPEN challenge is embedding the policy engagement role within universities themselves. Universities are complex institutions with well-established teaching, research and knowledge exchange missions and business models. But none of these offer incentives or ease of delivery for evidence informed public policy development per se. Until most recently with UPEN and some of the UKRI Local Policy Innovation Partnerships (LPIPs), Government has been reluctant to fund this type of activity, on the basis that university core research infrastructure is already substantially publicly funded.

On the demand side, the hollowing out of policy development, intelligence and strategic analysis capacity in the local public sector makes the ‘intelligent client’ role more challenging than hitherto. The lack of organisational slack in either local, combined authorities and universities makes the time-consuming building of trusts and partnerships distracting.

However, initiatives like the London Partnership Board (of HE, GLC and Boroughs) and more recently INE in the North East where the universities, LAs and CAs have co-ownership of the function offers potential for addressing these barriers in new, more sustainable, ways.

How to distinguish the university's influencing and informing roles

Sarah makes a critical distinction between the influencing and informing roles of the university in national, regional, and local policy development.

Universities – as place-based anchor institutions – are legitimate role players in many dimensions of a place’s development – employer, procurer, user of land and property, as well as their teaching, research, and knowledge exchange functions. They merit an influential voice in discussing, sometimes determining strategic choices locally. Many civic university and similar agreements focus on finding win-win solutions for these influencing roles.

The knowledge anchor role is fundamentally different – convening and informing policy debate independent of direct institutional interest. Although influencing and informing can inevitably sometimes get blurred, UPEN is part of the way you can assemble expertise and insight on an issue that synthesises the different perspectives of multiple universities. More locally, although the local university is always a good starting point, place leadership teams may sometimes wish to work with universities further afield on academic-policy engagement.

UCL is an example of a university as a national institution

Sarah did touch on UCL as a London-based institution with two major campuses playing placemaking roles in Bloomsbury and the Queen Elizabeth Park in Stratford. It is also a member of a very complex, fragmented higher education sector which can sometimes act collectively as with the London Higher regional association or the aforementioned London Partnership Board. Sarah also mentioned UCL’s considerable UK roles. In addition to cofounding UPEN, they also helped with the establishment of YPERN in Yorkshire. More generally, they are looking to contribute to places and build partnerships across the UK (David has done some work with UCL in the North East). This resonates with our earlier episode with Dan Thorp of Cambridge Ahead which referred to how collaboration between Cambridge and Manchester Universities led to wider partnerships between the two Combined Authorities. Although the first point of contact is always likely to be the local university, there may be occasions to look further afield.

Concluding remarks

It is little surprise that LEDC returns frequently to university roles in and contributions to LED and placemaking. We would like to think this episode offers new important insights and perspectives. The episode makes a persuasive case for places to have an awareness of their knowledge and intelligence infrastructure and services – and a commitment to strengthening this over the time. It discusses a menu of forms this might take, the barriers to embedding it, and goes well beyond the university as an anchor institution influencer of policy and strategy. It recognises a need to bring in new sources of knowledge – sometimes using the universities to convene and curate this. With UPEN nationally, and increasing regional partnerships, the UK is arguably at the forefront of academic-policy engagement internationally. Local and regional leadership teams should consider their requirements for this area of work.

Are there further issues on university involvement you would like us to return to in future episodes, shots, and blogs? And what do you think of the points made? How do they resonate or differ from your own experience and current challenges, either in your institutions or economic geography? Please let us know and lets keep the discussions going.