The goal of this project is to improve the visibility, status, and accessibility of policy work in the department. It will be useful for the department members who are doing policy work, especially Early Career Researchers. I will evaluate progress by tracking the amount of engagement with the events and the connections by the members of the department.
The Project has three parts to it:
1. Creation of the Policy Group in the Department
I propose to organise policy work in the department using the existing Research group structure in the department. In particular, I will convene a “Policy Group”. Every member of the department who is engaged in policy work will be listed as a member, including their UK and international policy experience. In the first year, I will focus on UK government policy connections (including quangos, such as the FCA, and the Bank of England). Policy interests would be summarized according to Areas of Research Interest (ARI) (which are regularly submitted by all government departments following the Nurse Review of UK Research Councils). Doctoral students and early career researchers will also be listed, but crucially they will be able to easily see which members of the department are involved in what kinds of policy work.
Policy Associates and Fellows would commit to i) visibility on the department website ii) attending or presenting at Policy Seminar Series or the Policy Jamboree iii) responding to connections with doctoral students or ECRs who are working on relevant topics. My aim is to have at least 10 active senior Department members, 5 active ECRs and doctoral students, and 5 Policy Associates and Fellows in the Policy Group by the end of the year.
2. Economic Policy Seminar Series
Economics seminars usually end with a slide on “policy implications”. This pays lip service to the nature of institutional constraints and the importance of delivering real-world change. I propose to have a fortnightly series entirely devoted entirely to Economic Policy with internal and external speakers starting in January 2023. Internal speakers will include junior and senior members of the Department and of broader Oxford economics network (i.e., economists at the QEH, Blavatnik School of Government, Saïd Business School and across the Colleges). External speakers would include junior and senior academics from the UK and beyond as well as Policy Associates and Fellows. The format of the seminar would be to present a clear real-world policy problem, describe the path to engagement and explain the obstacles that were overcome, methods that were used to tackle the problem and the eventual impact. This flips the traditional economics seminar on its head by putting policy and impact first and allowing technical issues that fill out most of the seminar to play a secondary role.
3. Policy Jamboree
The department ran an incredibly successful, week-long Research Jamboree throughout week 9 of Trinity Term 2022 (organised by Professor Michael McMahon). I would like to run a day of Policy related work at the Jamboree. There are several options for the format:
- Inviting a set of junior and senior civil servants from a single department (chosen by popular demand).
- Inviting a set of civil servants from across several departments/bodies who are working within the same Area of Research Interests (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/areas-of-research-interest).
- Presentations of relevant research by doctoral students, ECRs and senior Department members.
- Panel discussion of key research demands from the policymakers.
This is a tremendous opportunity for open-ended networking for doctoral students and ECRs. The day could be capped with a Policy Associates and Fellows' Dinner.
This project is funded by Oxford Policy Engagement Network (OPEN)
