engaging your policy audiences short course (e.g. by influence, power, alignment, interest,...
TRANSCRIPT
Engaging your policy audiences
Short course
Facilitators:
James Georgalakis, Head of Communications
Hannah Corbett, Public Affairs and Policy Officer
Yaso Kunaratnam, Network and Partnerships Convenor
We want you to learn
Not too much lecturing from facilitators
Lots of thinking discussing and working in
groups
Success depends on participation
How this course will be run
As a courtesy to your colleagues, please:
Be quiet and listen
when others are
speaking, respecting
each other and their
views
Contribute fully,
speak loud and
clear
Ground Rules
Course Objectives
• Gain a broad overview of research and policy
communications, and how your own organisation's work fits
within this spectrum of activities.
• Improve your knowledge of the stakeholder mapping tools
required to identify and prioritise key policy audiences.
• Develop your understanding of how different communications
tools can be used to engage with different audiences.
• Outline a number of ways in which you can apply learning
from the course to the work of your own organisations.
Why does engaging you policy audiences matter?
Research communication is defined as the ability to interpret
or translate complex research findings into language, format
and context that non experts can understand.
It is not just about dissemination of research results and is
unlike marketing that simply promotes a product. Research
communications must address the needs of those who will use
the research or benefit from it.
What is research communications?
Communication not as Dissemination…
but as engagement
Effective research communications
Distillation of research findings
Use of plain language
Making information accessible
Tailored communications for different audiences
Identification of the needs of the target groups
Consider technical barriers, language and cultural
factors etc
Three ingredients of effective communication
Effective communication
Channel
Message
Audience
Main delivery channels
Publications Digital
Media Events
Communications throughout research project that
may inform:
Research agenda
Methodological choices
Communications strategy
Research Programmes
Developing a strategic approach
1. Objectives: What are the desirable outcomes from our
communications activity?
2. Audiences: Who do we want to influence and inform and
what do we know about them?
3. Communications pathways: Who is best placed to
communicate with each of our audiences and what are the
best ways to reach them?
4. Timescales: When will be the best times to communicate?
5. Resources: What do we need - what might we have?
Five key questions that your policy engagement
strategy should answer:
Setting objectives
• What will success look like for the project?
• What do you want individuals/institutions to do as a result of your communications with them: Act differently; Think differently; Design or implement policies differently?
• How realistic are your objectives – what are the main barriers to your success?
Audiences
• Who are you trying to reach?
• Why should they listen to you or care?
• Will they agree with you? Are they potential partners or opponents?
• What role might they play in the research design, delivery or uptake?
Communications Pathways
• Who is best placed to communicate with each of your target audiences? Who has the skills, knowledge, contacts, legitimacy, networks?
• How do your audiences access information and what/who influences them?
• What kind of communication outputs/activities will be most effective in reaching your audiences? Tweets, blog, policy brief, workshop, high level meeting, report, media, journal?
Timescale
When will be the best time to influence policy or practice?
What are the planned events and processes where you could present your research?
Particular opportunities to collaborate with others?
Are you tracking policy environment to support planning?
Resources
Have you already mapped out the activities you plan to
undertake?
What are the major resource implications – time, materials,
skills?
Will resource limitations or capability issues mean making
any hard choices – how will you prioritise between
desirable communications activities?
Useful Resources
Presentation on strategic approach to policy engagement by IDS:
http://www.slideshare.net/Bloggs74/policy-engagement-and-
communications
A global guide to research to action:
http://www.researchtoaction.org/
Blog on institutional engagement strategies:
http://www.researchtoaction.org/2014/03/influencing-and-engagement-
why-let-research-programmes-have-all-the-fun/
ROMA – a guide to policy engagement and policy influence:
http://www.roma.odi.org/introduction.html
Yaso Kunaratnam
Network & Partnerships Convenor, Knowledge Services
Engaging your Policy Audiences, July 2014
Introduction to Stakeholder
Mapping
Understanding who your key stakeholders and audiences are is
a vital step in determining your approaches to policy engagement
and influencing.
Mapping is a technique that can help you identify and prioritise
stakeholders and give you an insight into the power dynamics,
links and relationships between stakeholders as well as their
levels of influence, alignment and interest.
Stakeholder mapping – what & why?
Stakeholder Mapping Tools
Matrix Mapping
1. Power/interest matrix 3. Participatory Impact
Pathways Analysis (PIPA)
2. Alignment, Interest and
Influence Matrix (AIIM)
4. Network Mapping
(Net-Map)
Power / Interest Matrix
Credit: Mind Tools
Alignment, Interest & Influence Matrix (AIIM)
Credit: ODI RAPID
Learn in partnership
Challenge existing
beliefs
Develop enthusiasm to
address topic
Develop awareness
and enthusiasm
Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis (PIPA)
Helps to clarify your 'impact
pathways‘ and make explicit
your theory of change.
Two maps are constructed: a
‘now’ network map, showing
current key relationships
between stakeholders and a
‘future’ network map showing
how stakeholders should link
together to achieve your vision.
Strategies are derived from the
differences between the now map and
the future map.
Credit: International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)
Network Mapping (Net-map)
Credit: POSHAN nutrition project
Define scope - is it for an institute, programme or
project, topic or an output? What level does it look at (global, regional, national,
local)?
Define objective – define your policy/communications
objective. This can be expressed as an issue, goal, outcome, vision statement
or key question.
Identify – brainstorm and list stakeholders (individuals,
types of people, departments, teams,
organisations, groups and networks) related to your
objective.
Categorise - group stakeholders by type (e.g.
government, media, donors)
Map – visualise relationships and links between stakeholders
Rank – rank stakeholders (e.g. by influence, power,
alignment, interest, attitude)
Analyse – reflect on stakeholders positions, perspectives, links and
relationships, how you might want them to change, and what this might mean for your strategies to engage
audiences.
Prioritise – identify who your key audiences are.
Stages of stakeholder mapping
Case Study 1: UK development policy in fragile
states
Case Study 2: The urban dimension in European
development policy
Case Study 3: Holding African governments to
account on low political commitment to tackling child
malnutrition
Case study 4: Comparative global health data
Case Study 5: Assessing the impact of immigration
on the UK
Exercise: Case Studies
Choose one case study
In groups go through following process for each case
study
1) Read case study
2) Add to list of policy actors and influencers
3) Map stakeholders by proximity to lead organisation
4) Map links and relationships
5) Rank/Analyse stakeholders
• By influence
• By attitude
6) Prioritise 3 key stakeholders
Group exercise
Introduction to Stakeholder Engagement
Power/interest matrix
Alignment, Interest and Influence Matrix (AIIM)
Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis (PIPA)
Network Mapping (Net-Map)
- POSHAN example
Resources – further reading
Tools and tactics for reaching
your audiences
• What are they?
• How are they changing?
• How I can use them to best effect?
Hannah Corbett, Public Affairs and Policy Officer
Digital
Digital Disruption
What is it and what does it mean for
communications and engagement work?
Disruptive Innovation
Term coined by Clayton Christensen - a
process by which a product or service takes root
initially in simple applications at the bottom of a
market and then relentlessly moves up market,
eventually displacing established competitors
Disruptive Innovation
Three key principles:
1. Simpler
2. Cheaper
3. Lower quality (initially)
Examples of Disruptive Innovations
• Email instead of letters
• Digital photography instead of chemical
photography
• Smartphones/tablets instead of PCs
• What else??
Moving from analogue to digital
communications
1. Lower cost
2. More democratic
3. Quicker
4. Less barriers to entry
Disrupting wonkcomms
Modern Day Disruptors
From NY
Times
leaked
memo on
digital
strategy
Changes in how people access information
Changes in how people find information
Analogue Early digital Current digital trends
• Libraries and dewy
decimal system
• Search engines
(trusted sites)
• Social media and
Google (trusted
friends)
• Encyclopaedias • Wikipedia • Wikipedia AND
explainer sites and
listicles
• Newspapers and
news programmes
• Digital newspapers • Digital newspapers
that are still surviving
plus native digital
news sites like
Vox.com
End of people landing on your homepage?
Traffic driven to IDS
blogs is increasingly
driven by social media,
search engines – rather
than as a result of it
being promoted on our
homepage.
NY Times – visits to
homepage down nearly
by half between 2011
and 2013
So what does this mean in practice?
Chart or infographic
Sharing on social media
Blogs, media placements
Briefs and executive
summaries
Reports (online, eBook and/or PDF)
Events and videos
Relationship building
Defining your approach – questions to ask
1. HOW do your audiences access information and
what who/influences them?
2. WHO is best placed to communicate with each of
your target audiences
3. WHEN is the best time engage with your key
audiences?
Select appropriate tools and tactics
AUDIENCE HOW WHO WHEN WHAT EXPECTED
OUTCOME
Government
Minister
Limited time
Importance of
interme-
diaries
Political
context
Govt priorities
Senior rep
i.e. Director
Partners
Internal
capacity and
resources in
terms of
activity
coordination
External
environment
– event,
consultation
Practical
constraints –
launch of
project,
funder
requirements
Publications
Media
Digital
Events
+ individual
meetings
Change in
policy
discourse
Organisation
positioning
?
AUDIENCE HOW WHO WHEN WHAT EXPECTED
OUTCOME
Identify
specific
audience
What do you
know about
how they
access
information
and what/who
influences
them?
Who in the
organisation
is best placed
to
communicate
with them?
Who in the
organisation
is best placed
to lead this
work?
(capacity and
resources
including
money )
When do you
need to
engage with
them? (i.e.
start of
project)
When is the
best time to
engage with
them? (i.e. is
their an
external
hook, policy
window?)
What do you
think the best
tool or tactics
will be to
reach them?
What are you
hoping will
change as a
result of this
engagement?