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This video is part of the “How to communicate science” video series.

Video transcript:

“So I’m really interested in policy engagement because I feel like the research that we do, it’s great to be understanding the conceptual ecological theories and a better understanding of the environment, but really the key reason why I do it, research, is to have an impact, to conserve biodiversity, ensure that the environment is better managed. So making sure that your research has an impact – it’s not just sitting on a shelf collecting dust or sitting in your computer files collecting electronic dust, if that exists!

So how do we do this effectively? How do you make sure that your research is not sitting on a shelf collecting dust? There’s five things you can use to help inform policy makers about your research.

So the first one is knowing your target audience. So understanding who is the most relevant person or organization or institution who could take your research and apply it to decisions. Once you’ve identified your target audience then you try to understand the constraints that they work under, understand their priorities, get to know their language – so if there’s a particular policy that’s relevant to your research, understand that policy and then be able to really clearly articulate how your research fits into that policy. 

Tip number two: build trust and relationships with policy makers so once you’ve identified the target audience start to engage with them, ideally on a regular basis if possible, so eventually they’d be able to be comfortable to pick up the phone and ask you questions about scientific advice.

So tip number three: identify the avenues of how you’re actually going to engage. There’s lots of different ways of engaging. One is being proactive: so if you’ve got a research project that’s really relevant, policy makers need to know about it, be proactive about that by letting them know. And you can do that by creating a policy brief, so a one to two page document that identifies why it’s important and then what your research findings are and recommendations for that particular issue, and then contacting them and trying to set up a meeting with the people who are relevant. The second is reactive: so when there’s lots of opportunities for public submissions and public comment on the issues that the government needs feedback and consultation on. 

Tip number four: keep your messages simple and sticky. By sticky I’m meaning that they can understand what you say and remember and tell someone else about it in a week’s time. So to make your messages simple and sticky you have to tell a story – keep it concise but also credible. That credibility comes through backing up your story with the evidence and the science and the research. Less is more, so rather than providing them with all the facts like big pages and documents about ‘these are all the reasons why’, choose your one and two key reasons why it’s important and stick with them, otherwise people just get overwhelmed and the message is lost.

So tip number five: policy engagement is hard and it takes time so I really just recommend persevering and practicing and learning as you go. Evidence use or the uptake of evidence is very rarely in a linear process it’s really uncommon that a particular research paper then directly translates into a policy change. It’s more about this big like soup of information where there’s lots of different factors and information coming in from many different stakeholders – your research is just one part of that puzzle that the decision makers have to try to put together to then make informed decisions. And so even if you don’t see immediate impact or direct impact, just being present providing that information, eventually that message will come across either in the concepts or their general thinking and understanding of how the system and ecosystems work.

So finally the last thing is just to remember that your voice and expertise as an ecologist or a conservation scientist is really valuable. By providing that time and input into policy engagement it’s, yeah, it’s very useful and important and just give it a go!“