Why Engage – or Not? An Icebreaker Exercise on the Pros and Cons of Policy Engagement

Key features in a nutshell

• This exercise invites participants to discuss the reasons for and against engaging with policymakers; while reasons such as impact, the politicization of expertise, and lack of resources and recognition tend to come up immediately; less obvious motivations such as the benefits of policy engagement for research itself, or the intrinsic rewards of the work are rarely mentioned; this quick, interactive exercise helps workshop participants surface and discuss their underlying assumptions regarding academic policy engagement
• The exercise activates participants in the opening minutes of the workshop, with positive effects on their engagement and participation throughout the session
• The exercise works equally well in in-person and in virtual workshop settings.

How does the format work?

An active audience is essential for a successful policy engagement workshop. It is equally important to surface the assumptions participants bring with them about what policy engagement is, why it matters, and what makes it difficult. This simple icebreaker achieves both goals in 10-20 minutes.

Step 1: Generate pro and con reasons

Divide participants into groups of two to four. Ask each group to discuss the following questions:

Cite four reasons why researchers should engage with policymakers; cite four reasons why they might choose not to.

In in-person workshops: provide cards and marker pens so groups can write down their answers – one reason per card.
In virtual workshops: use a tool like Mentimeter or a shared digital whiteboard.

Duration: 10 minutes

Step 2: Collect the answers

Ask one group to present their reasons; invite the other groups to add any reasons not yet mentioned.

In in-person workshops, ask groups to pin their cards to a pinboard. Take a photo of the results for documentation.
In virtual workshops, take a screenshot of the compiled answers.

Duration: 10 minutes

Step 3: Debrief

The answers can usually be grouped into the following categories. Facilitators should use these as a guide for the debrief discussion rather than as a fixed script.

Reasons in favor of policy engagement

Impact. Scientific evidence can improve the quality of policy decisions. Many researchers work on salient issues – health, energy, environment, climate, conflict, education – and want their findings to make a difference in the real world.

Giving back to society. Most research is funded by taxpayers. Researchers want to demonstrate the societal value of their work.

Access to funding. Commissioned research can be an important funding stream. Researchers may also engage with policymakers to raise awareness of their field and advocate for research budgets. This response is worth noting in the debrief: it shows that many participants do not yet distinguish between policy engagement and science advice on the one hand and lobbying, government affairs, and fundraising on the other. Making this distinction explicit is important, and this exercise therefore pairs well with a subsequent session on the differences between policy engagement and these related but distinct activities.

Benefits for research. Engaging with policymakers can help researchers gain new perspectives, identify emerging policy challenges, and generate new research questions or hypotheses. In surveys conducted among researchers participating in the joint policy engagement activities of the Rhine-Main Universities, around 60 percent report that engagement with policymakers has given them new ideas that benefit their own research. Policy engagement can also open doors to interviews with policymakers, access to data or internal documents, and partnerships with public institutions for research projects. This reason is rarely mentioned spontaneously, and it is worth drawing participants’ attention to it explicitly.

A rewarding experience. Policy engagement can be intrinsically motivating and genuinely enjoyable. This reason is almost never mentioned unprompted, and is worth addressing directly: researchers should only pursue policy engagement activities they find meaningful or at least tolerable. Intrinsic motivation is the most reliable predictor of sustained engagement. As a rule of thumb for participants: do not commit to activities you actively dislike!

Reasons against policy engagement

Lack of understanding of policymaking and policy engagement formats. Many researchers do not understand how policymaking works or which policy engagement formats exist beyond policy briefs, lengthy reports, or formal expert bodies. Workshops on policy engagement must therefore address both: how policy processes work, and the full range of formats available to researchers.

Perceived lack of impact. Workshop participants frequently report frustrating experiences: a 100-page commissioned report whose recommendations were ignored; a year’s work on an expert body that produced no policy change. Such experiences reflect a mismatch between researchers’ expectations and the realities of policymaking. This is often rooted in limited knowledge of how policy processes actually work and can be revisited productively when the workshop turns to explaining policymaking processes in more depth.

Lack of time and resources. Researchers face competing demands – research, teaching, administrative obligations – and often perceive policy engagement as time-consuming or expensive. This is a legitimate concern, but it is also a misconception worth addressing: policy engagement takes many forms, some of which require months of sustained effort, while others can be completed in a matter of hours or days.

Lack of recognition. While science communication and knowledge exchange are becoming increasingly valued in academic institutions, many researchers, particularly those doing fundamental research, remain concerned that engaging with policymakers may be seen as insufficiently academic. Recognition and reward systems for policy engagement are developing in many countries but remain underdeveloped in others.

Politicization of expertise. Many researchers worry about being associated with particular political parties or ideologies when taking public positions on policy issues. They fear being drawn into political debates or being held personally responsible for government decisions informed by their research. These concerns are reinforced by well-documented cases in which scientists were publicly attacked by politicians, media, or social media users for providing scientific evidence on contested issues.

Requirements from superiors or funding agencies. Funding agencies increasingly require projects to demonstrate policy impact. Institutional leaders sometimes ask researchers to produce policy publications or participate in policy events. While there may be good reasons for such requirements, they frequently generate frustration when researchers feel obliged to perform tasks they find meaningless or poorly suited to their expertise. Researchers in this situation should identify the policy engagement activities they are most likely to find meaningful and communicate clearly to their superiors about what they can realistically contribute. Where impact documentation is required, the goal should be to find activities that are both documentable and genuinely valued by the researcher.

Conclusions

The responses generated by this exercise will resurface throughout the workshop. Facilitators should note which reasons and which misconceptions appear most prominently in their group. They should use them as reference points when introducing subsequent topics such as policymaking processes, policy engagement formats, or the distinction between science advice and lobbying.

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

Workshop facilitators

Provide cards and marker pens for in-person workshops or set up a digital tool such as Mentimeter for virtual sessions. Communicate clearly at the outset that there are no right or wrong answers. The goal is to allow honest reflections to arise. Enforce the time limit: this is an icebreaker, not a full discussion, and should not exceed 20 minutes in total. Document the answers by photographing the pinboard or taking a screenshot.

Researchers, research managers, and other participants

Participants are encouraged to state their honest reasons for and against policy engagement without censoring themselves in search of the “right” answer. The exercise is most valuable when participants share genuine concerns and motivations.

Policymakers

If policymakers are present, they are invited to share their own perspective on why researchers should, or should not, engage with them. Facilitators can use this as an opportunity to contrast the researchers’ responses with those of the policymakers, often generating productive discussion.

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