Assessing the Accessibility of (Policy) Publications

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