The Researcher's Guide to Influencing Policy

Designed to help navigate the complex and ethical challenges of working with policy, this must-read book will help researchers effect changes with meaningful and widespread impact. Readers will learn how to negotiate complex power dynamics, use informing and influencing strategies and play critical roles in policy networks to give voice to those who are rarely heard in the corridors of power.

This guide is based on two decades of Professor Reed’s peer-reviewed work on the impact of research and his experience using his environmental research to influence policy around the world. It covers the tried and tested practical skills needed to co-produce policy options, based on rigorous evidence and the perspectives of those whose lives will ultimately be affected by policy. Importantly, it provides the tools required to communicate research effectively to policy audiences and collect evidence of policy impacts.

Applicable to all disciplines and career stages, The Researcher’s Guide to Influencing Policy provides the confidence needed to start engaging with policy safely, responsibly and effectively. It is time to get out of the echo chamber of research and policy elites and to start getting our hands dirty with the messy reality of real-world policy.

Mark S. Reed is Professor of Rural Entrepreneurship and Director of the Natural Capital Challenge Centre at Scotland's Rural College (SRUC), UK. He is also CEO of Fast Track Impact, Research Lead for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s UK Peatland Programme and Co-Chair of the United Nations Environment Programme Global Peatlands Initiative Research Working Group and plays advisory roles for various UK government bodies.