📜 Policy research doesn't speak for itself

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Where is your opportunity in a changing world?

The world feels unstable and uncertain. Part of the challenge is that we don’t know whether the changes that have already happened are a swing to a new world order, or whether the pendulum will swing back in four years' time. What do you do when everything is in flux? The questions we are asking ourselves at Wellcome are what the changes mean for us, and what we can do about it. Practically, this means we are continually building our understanding of the situation to identify new opportunities for policy change. I’d also recommend reading Duncan Green’s book ‘How Change Happens’ - it is really strong on the subject of finding opportunities during such critical junctures.

The public affairs skillset deserves more respect

If we’re going to be effective policy influencers in the current dynamic, we’re going to have to give the public affairs skillset some more respect. We need real political savviness, and that means meeting the world where it is and really understanding its full complexity and messiness. And at the same time not being bogged down in complexity, and being able to work out when you can make a tangible difference. There’s something about being political, and being apolitical at the same time. By which I mean we need to be really politically savvy, but not take sides. It demands us to think about the different types of politics that are often not the natural place for lots of people who work in the charity sector, and get under the skin of that politics and what’s driving it. That’s not always a very comfortable place for people to be, but it’s essential if we’re going to make sure that our policy solutions are politically pragmatic.

Look beyond research to make a difference

Researchers, certainly in the science community, are very evidence and fact based and tend to think you can more easily distill things into right and wrong - you can do some analysis and come up with a good answer. But the world is often messier than that. Sometimes the research community can lack appreciation for other skills beyond research - and those skills are going to be crucial for research to get heard today. At Wellcome we want to be visionary, but we also want to come up with things that are going to ultimately make a real difference.