New policy briefing toolkit unveiled

08 May 2014

A new toolkit to help researchers communicate effectively with policymakers and influencers has been released.

As part of work funded by the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) Impact Accelerator Account, the policy@manchester initiative has unveiled a policy briefing template and a guide to completing it effectively.

The documents have been developed by Linstock Communications, which works with a number of Universities on public affairs and influencing policy. Linstock worked with researchers during the development process, to understand their needs and ambitions.

A pilot training session on using the template and achieving policy influence has also been held to unveil the template to researchers, and feedback from this has been very positive. Policy@manchester hopes to run more of these sessions in the future.

As part the project, researchers are also able to access to the Dods database of MPs, Peers, Senior Civil Servants and Special Advisors. This allows searches for key national figures who have specific policy interests, and provides details of their key staff and contact information, which can be used to build a distribution list for a policy briefing.

Policy@manchester is keen to hear from researchers who use the toolkit and is keen to promote all briefings produced, via its web site and other prominent channels.

Note: you will need to log in using your University username and password to access these documents.

Contact Policy@Manchester

policy@manchester.ac.uk or 53038