Political engagement:

1
Political engagement The role of research
www.comres.co.uk
15 September 2009
2
The role of research in influencing public policy

• Testing strategic objectives
• Developing themes, messages and slogans
• Benchmarking and tracking progress
• Evidencing your case

3
The phases of research

• Planning
• Execution
• Evaluation

4
Planning

• Are our objectives achievable?
• Who are the decision-makers?
• Who are our stakeholders?
• What do the decision makers and stakeholders
  think?
• Who are our policy competitors?

5
The stakeholder map
Business Community
Government Officials
NGOs
Media
Decision Makers
Professional Bodies
Trade Associations
Legislators
Academics
Voters / Consumers
Think Tanks
6
Execution

• How research can support the execution phase
• Not to track progress is to waste resource and
  court failure
• What works and what doesnt
• Third parties trade associations, charity
  partners and pressure groups

7
Evaluation

• How can we define success?
• The policy outcome
• ROI versus reputation shift
• Ask the audience what you could have done/be
  doing better

8
Some principles for utilising research in an
influencing context

• It is a specialist activity
• Separate advice from evaluation
• Use a publicly known provider if research is
  published
• Keep control of research output
• Use third parties/build coalitions

9
Examples
1. Strategic research among global set of NGOs,
academics, government officials etc to find the
space for public policy ownership 2. Nutritioni
st research across global markets supporting
political campaign to win acceptance for
sweetener 3. Plastics 2020 challenge launch
survey 4. Opposition grows to beer tax
increase (suggests there is opposition and it is
increasing)