Summary: Key features in a nutshell

• This exercise helps scientists and knowledge-exchange officers understand the difference between academic and policy-oriented events.
• Policymakers need event descriptions and invitations that clearly demonstrate why attending the event would benefit them.

How does the format work?

Step 1: Share the two letters of invitation for a fictitious conference in Brussels with the workshop participants. Provide the following instruction: “You are working for a member of the European Parliament, and your boss has received two invitations to take part in panel discussions in Brussels. Unfortunately, both are scheduled for the same time. Your boss asks you to review the invitations and to recommend the one most likely to benefit her in terms of access to policy-relevant research, stakeholder dialogue, and visibility. Please read both invitations. Which one do you recommend? What aspects of the invitations do you find convincing? What aspects could be improved?”

Step 2: Ask the participants to read the two invitations. They have three minutes to do so.

Step 3: Ask the participants to identify the differences between the two invitations. What do they appreciate about the structure of each event? Which event is likely to be more beneficial for the MEP?

Invitation 1: Tis one has several weaknesses. First, it is too long, making it difficult to locate key information such as the date and venue. Second, it reads like a summary of an academic conference program clearly aimed at a scientific audience, featuring numerous acronyms and references to scholars who may be well known within their fields but are unlikely to be recognised outside academia. Third, the presence of major publishing houses and the launch of a new dataset may be compelling reasons for researchers to attend but are unlikely to attract policymakers. Fourth, a panel composed of three academics and one policymaker is not particularly appealing to a political audience. Finally, the event is held in Vilvoorde, which, while only around 11 km from the European Parliament, still takes approximately 30 minutes to reach by train or car — meaning the MEP would need to set aside at least an hour just for travel.

Invitation 2: The second is more effective for several reasons. First, it is concise and presents key information — date, venue, and purpose — immediately. Second, it makes clear from the outset why the MEP has been contacted personally. Third, the panel features one researcher with demonstrable policy experience as a member of an OECD expert group, alongside two representatives of prominent associations. Fourth, the invitation indicates that the event is expected to be well attended and likely to attract media coverage — both of which matter to policymakers. Finally, the venue is within walking distance of the European Parliament.

Step 4: Ask participants to identify and write down the features that make events appealing to policymakers.

For groups of up to ten participants, it is recommended that the findings be discussed in plenary using flip charts or interactive tools such as Mentimeter. For larger groups, participants should be split into breakout groups and given cards and pens to record their answers, which can then be shared and discussed in plenary.

Possible challenges and how to address them

Both invitations represent idealized types. While venues close to the European Parliament are advantageous, they may not always be affordable. Similarly, organizers cannot guarantee high attendance from prominent participants. It is therefore entirely reasonable to organize purely academic events when the resources or capacity to make them relevant for policy are not available.

Tasks and resources: Brief description of the tasks and resources needed by scientists, knowledge exchange officers/research managers, and policymakers

Workshop facilitators

Facilitators are responsible for distributing printed or electronic versions of the invitations to participants. They should familiarize themselves with both invitations and reflect on the differences between the two events in advance.

Scientists and other participants

Participants read both invitation letters and take part in the subsequent discussion. The exercise and discussion together require between 10 and 20 minutes.

Policymakers

If policymakers are present, the facilitator should involve them in the discussion and invite them to share what criteria an event must meet for them to attend.

See invitation letters_rmu

Sources and further reading

Please add URL or publications, if applicable.

See also contributions on the following issues

The editors of the toolkit will add the information in this section.

Do you want to know more about the policy engagement toolkit?

Do you want to share your experience in policy engagement? Do you think about contributing to the policy engagement toolkit? Feel free to contact Tome Sandevski via science-policy@pvw.uni-frankfurt.de

Description of Exercise

Workshop Exercise — Giving Presentations to Policymaker

Scenario: You work for a Member of the European Parliament. One of your friends is a researcher who coordinates an EU project on sustainable public
transportation in Europe. Your friend has been invited to present the project’s research findings and policy recommendations at a conference in Brussels.

See the full presentation

Do you want to know more about the policy engagement toolkit?

Do you want to share your experience in policy engagement? Do you think about contributing to the policy engagement toolkit? Feel free to contact Tome Sandevski via science-policy@pvw.uni-frankfurt.de

You are a researcher and member of an interdisciplinary research group on healthy nutrition, comprising scholars from law, nutrition science, agriculture, medicine, economics, sociology, and communication.

The mayor’s office has just launched a campaign to boost the city’s image by establishing it as a centre of healthy, regional, and organic food. Only a few days into the campaign, a market research institute publishes a survey on fast food consumption across the country. The results are embarrassing: your city has the highest per capita consumption of unhealthy fast food in the entire country. The media picks up the story quickly, and social media fills with memes mocking your city’s eating habits.

The local association of physicians responds with an open letter, warning that diet-related illness rates in the city are well above the national average. The letter points to the high concentration of fast food chains and calls on the mayor to take concrete action. The open letter is widely cited in the media and seized upon by opposition parties in the city council. The local branch of the consumers’ association calls for a ban on fast food advertising and higher taxation of fast food chains. It also proposes that the local government should subsidise restaurants providing healthy food by leasing government-owned buildings at below-market rents. Parent associations and environmental NGOs support these demands.

Opposition parties go further, dismissing the mayor’s campaign as elitist: promoting organic and regional food is all well and good, they argue, but what about citizens who simply cannot afford it?

The association of fast food chains soon enters the debate, pushing back against what it sees as unfair blame. Its representatives argue that their restaurants offer a wide range of healthy choices at prices that fit any budget. The association also makes clear that it will take legal action against the local government if the proposed measures are implemented.

Against this backdrop, the mayor’s office reaches out to your interdisciplinary research group and asks you to draft policy recommendations on how the consumption of healthy food can be promoted in the city. The grant agreement gives you full editorial independence — only you decide what goes into the recommendations and when they are published. Your university’s legal office reviews and approves the agreement, and you are satisfied with the budget.

You bring the request to your research group. The reactions could not be more different:

Researcher 1: “Our job is fundamental research. We publish in peer-reviewed journals — that is how we advance our careers and contribute to science. Writing policy recommendations is not what we are here for, and there are already countless policy recommendations available online. If the mayor’s office wants some, they can find them. On top of that, I have no interest in being dragged into a legal dispute with a fast food chain.”

Researcher 2: “We cannot ignore the fact that our research is publicly funded. An unhealthy diet has serious consequences for people’s lives, and we have the knowledge to help. I suggest we develop an interactive map or app that allows residents to assess the nutritional value of meals available across the city. That way, we empower people to make informed choices without singling out or attacking any restaurant.”

Researcher 3: “An app that only shows nutritional scores is not enough. We need to name specific dishes and the places that serve them. We should pay particular attention to eateries that cater to people with dietary restrictions — whether for ethical, religious, or health reasons. We cannot ignore the ecological dimension either: the carbon footprint of what we eat matters. Our city has some wonderful restaurants serving regional and organic food, and we should support them. I therefore recommend subsidising healthy food restaurants, taxing fast food chains, and banning them from advertising their products.”

Researcher 4: “Healthy food restaurants tend to be expensive. Promoting organic food that most people cannot afford does not solve anything. Besides, fast food chains are significant employers in our city — harming them economically will also harm many families in our community. I like the idea of a guide, but any guide we produce must be genuinely useful to people on tight budgets — otherwise we are simply reinforcing the elitism the opposition is already criticising.”

Researcher 1: “And if we start recommending affordable healthy options, we will inevitably end up pointing people towards fast food restaurants. I can already see the headline: ‘University researchers recommend McDonald’s.’ We will be a laughingstock in the academic community. Worse, we will hand the opposition exactly the ammunition they need to undermine the mayor. I want no part in politicising our research.”

Researcher 5: “I still think the app idea has real potential — but only if we go beyond nutritional scores. We could let users filter by price, dietary choice, and the origin of ingredients. That approach does not advocate for or against any particular restaurant. It simply gives people the tools to make their own informed decisions. In addition, we could draft a set of policy recommendations setting out the effects of taxes, advertising bans, and subsidies — explaining the pros and cons of each measure and leaving it to the local government to decide which ones to adopt.”

Do you want to know more about the policy engagement toolkit?

Do you want to share your experience in policy engagement? Do you think about contributing to the policy engagement toolkit? Feel free to contact Tome Sandevski via science-policy@pvw.uni-frankfurt.de

Putting Yourself in the Shoes of a Busy Policymaker

Key features in a nutshell

• This exercise simulates the role of a parliamentary assistant to help researchers understand what busy policymakers undergo when reading policy publications.
• It can be used in workshops or self-learning contexts: participants must identify the key messages of five policy publications within ten minutes.
• The exercise highlights the importance of visual clarity, easily identifiable key messages, plain language, and visual elements such as bullet points, highlighted headers, tables, and graphs.

How does the format work?

Step 1: Select five publications between two and twenty pages each. Many researchers struggle to appreciate what it feels like to read publications on unfamiliar topics, so it is important that the publications cover a range of subject areas (e.g., environment, climate change, health, international security, education, AI). Choose two well-structured, accessible policy briefs that present their key messages up front —I recommend the policy briefs of theOECD, E3G, or the International Crisis Group.

Choose three other publications such as academic publications, which are more difficult to overview, because they lack elements like summaries, bullet points, or visualizations. Publications featuring a lot of body text, methods sections, and academic jargon are ideally suited for this exercise.

Step 2: Distribute either printed or electronic versions of the publications to participants along with the following instructions:

“You are working as an assistant to a member of parliament, who has a full schedule of committee meetings, interviews, and panel discussions today and tomorrow. Your boss has received five publications by post and needs topical expertise on the issues they cover. She has to take a phone call lasting approximately ten minutes and leaves the publications on your desk, asking you to brief her on their key messages once she is done. You have ten minutes to browse the publications. You are NOT allowed to use AI to summarize them. Can you identify the key messages within ten minutes? Which publications made it easy to do so — and which were difficult to review?”

Step 3: To add a degree of time pressure, announce the remaining time every two minutes. Participants must stop after ten minutes. Afterwards, ask them whether they were able to identify the key messages in each publication, and which features helped or hindered them.

Features that tend to help include summaries at the beginning, bullet points, meaningful headers and subheadings, tables, and clear, easy-to-read charts.

Features that tend to hinder include dense body text, generic or vague headers, jargon, and lengthy theory or methods sections.

For groups of up to ten participants, it is recommended to discuss the findings in plenary, using flip charts or interactive tools such as Mentimeter. For larger groups, participants should be split into breakout groups and given cards and pens to record their answers, which can then be shared and discussed in plenary.

Possible challenges and how to address them

Participants may find the exercise stressful or become frustrated when trying to identify key messages in publications on unfamiliar topics. This is an intentional phenomenon: policymakers rarely have much time and are regularly expected to engage with expert publications across a wide range of subjects.

Some participants may point out that policymakers increasingly use AI tools to summarize publications — a valid observation. But even AI-generated summaries can run to several pages. Moreover, printed publications remain in use in many countries and institutions.

Tasks and resources: Brief description of the tasks and resources needed by scientists, knowledge exchange officers/research managers, and policymakers

Workshop facilitators

Facilitators are responsible for selecting the five publications and making them available — either in print or electronically. They should read all five publications themselves before the workshop. Preparation will require approximately 60 to 120 minutes; conducting the exercise will take between 20 and 40 minutes.

Scientists and other participants

Participants browse the publications to identify their key messages and take part in the subsequent discussion. The exercise and discussion together require between 20 and 40 minutes.

Policymakers

If policymakers are present, the facilitator should involve them in the discussion and invite them to share what criteria a publication must meet for them to engage with it.

Sources and further reading

Please add URL or publications, if applicable.

See also contributions on the following issues

The editors of the toolkit will add the information in this section.

Do you want to know more about the policy engagement toolkit?

Do you want to share your experience in policy engagement? Do you think about contributing to the policy engagement toolkit? Feel free to contact Tome Sandevski via science-policy@pvw.uni-frankfurt.de

Summary: Key features in a nutshell

• Originated from an academic participant’s observation of a local problem (difficulties in dialogue between providers of public interest services)
• Mobilized the quadruple helix model (academia, policymakers, private sector, civil society) plus Master’s students
• Resulted in two webinars discussing key issues and an experiential workshop led by academic scholars (full professor and researchers) and knowledge exchange managers
• The experimental workshop included group works in a role-playing mode, in order for participants to understand how other professional job role works
• Final debate and networking
• Ultimately, it allows for a new perspective and a broader understanding of the policymaking and implementation process

Description

This case study points out how a common language can be constructed with respect  to policy design or policy implementation in the region, thanks to an experiment launched by the Department of Economics at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and Ca’ Foscari Challenge School (the executive school of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice offering Master’s degrees and advanced training courses for professionals) under the Erasmus+ ENGAGEgreen project.

The program was organized into three constituent parts: two online meetings an in-person experiential workshop. This approach facilitates the engagement of researchers, policymakers, students, and workers/representatives from the third sector, NGOs, and civil society.

The starting point

The impetus for establishing a workshop that facilitates collaboration among diverse professionals engaged in public policy emerged from the observations of a researcher from the Department of Economics at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. The researcher was involved in a field research project in the planning office of a public body that collaborates with third sector organizations to provide services and relies on university research centers for the methodological definition of planning tools. Through field observation, it became clear that there was a problem in the dialogue between different bodies on the same issues, with regard to both administrative and methodological processes – in this specific case, the coproduction of social services.

Who should be involved as participants?

Master’s students, doctoral students, researchers, professors, mayors, councilors, public sector workers, third sector workers, and civil society.

How does the format work?

The initiative begins with the collection of participants’ registration. This step may seem obvious, but it is equally essential for creating a mixed classroom composed of different professionals and roles.

Subsequently, two online webinars are planned, led by professionals and university professors. The number of introductory webinars may vary based on the need for further study and the topics to be covered. The webinars aim to bring together the key topics of the course from both a theoretical perspective (looking at both the legal/administrative and methodological/sociological aspects) and a practical perspective. Ideally, the introductory webinars should lay the foundations for what will then be shared and implemented during the experiential workshop. The ideal structure should include at least one webinar held by academics to share theoretical foundations and at least one webinar held by public sector professionals to share the operating methods implemented by public offices.

The last and most important meeting is an experiential workshop divided into two parts:

• In the first part, the key theme of the day is explored in depth through a presentation by an academic expert on the subject, who will then support the working groups to resolve any theoreticalissues;
• The second part – which should last at least three hours – is the core of the activity and involves dividing the participants into mixed groups. It will proceed as follows:
  • the group work will take the form of a role-playing game, replicating a real-life operational situation involving discussions between various organizations and professionals, as would happen in reality;
  • as in any role-playing game, participants will put themselves in someone else’s shoes so the mayor may be a third sector worker, the public sector worker may be the councilor, the third sector worker may be the researcher, etc.
  • tasks are assigned – for example, the preparation of a collaboration agreement between institutions, and participants must draft the document, remembering that, on this occasion, they must represent an institution or role other than their own;
  • each group will have a knowledge exchange manager who will help participants stay on track.

Participants:

5 researchers

37 policymakers

6 students

5 NGO/civil society representatives

30 other (business/private)

Challenges

• involve different professionals and roles from different organizations and territories
• ensure that participants have a uniform level of knowledge
• make it clear that during the experiential workshop group work, participants are representing another organization and/or another role and therefore need to think differently

Task and resources

Academics

The program is very time efficient for academics. Since the meetings are about topics they already cover in conferences or courses, they do not have to invest much time in preparing other than reading about the topics of interest.

Support staff (researchers, knowledge exchange managers, and research managers)

The department employed

• two researchers, already part of the staff, to handle the methodological management of the initiative
• two research managers who handled the organizational aspects
• three knowledge exchange managers who facilitated the group work

Policymakers/researchers/workers from public bodies and the third sector

The participants must submit an application that takes them a couple of minutes to prepare.

Required funding

Light networking lunch was offered at the end of the workshop.

Sources and further reading

Event poster.