Supporting government’s answer their research questions.

How do government’s research questions get answered? Where can you find out what they don’t know and need answers for. How can you help as a researcher?

Many colleagues ask NCE how you know what policymakers want to know. One way in…and it isn’t the only way is through the Areas for Research Interest (ARI) system. This is a process where government departments and now devolved administrations and some other organisations like combined authorities will share publicly their knotty and longer-term research challenges and questions.

It's a process I’ve become more and more engaged with, and I am now a co-chair of a group within the University Policy Engagement Network that supports ARI uptake and development across the university sector and with policymakers. Last week, alongside my co-chairs Rob Davies and Nicky Buckley from Closer/UCL and Cambridge, I was in London with knowledge brokers and academics to begin a new term of this sub-committee. We worked together to plan out the year ahead, work on our priorities and share some exciting events we already have planned.

One of our main tasks so far is to continue the good work of our previous chairs who worked hard to promote ARIs to academics. To that end on the 18 September, we will be showcasing the Office for Statistics Regulation’s ARI. Our aim is to help them to demystify statistics regulation for academics and promote engagement with their research needs. More events will follow this year on recently released and soon to be released ARIs across government departments, but we are also interested in the growing number of ARIs that are in development at different levels of governance and organisation such as Leeds City Councils.

At Leeds and around the Tyne we have seen exciting developments with ARIs and CAPE will be releasing a how to guide soon so others can consider if setting up an ARI is for them. The government also invested in www.ari.org.uk which houses all the UK Government’s ARI questions in a searchable format which is a great place to go if you want to see how relevant your research area or next research question might be to policy stakeholders.

Our hope in the sub-committee is to ensure that the research challenges people face can be shared and understood more broadly and that academics can more easily find ways to share current and future research with those who need it to make a positive difference in society.

If you want to learn more about how to engage with ARIs or with the University Policy Engagement Network, then get in touch with me (Rich)