Sally Theobald and Joanna Crichton with multiple acknowledgements!

1. ABBA RPC The research to policy and practice interface in SRH and HIV: Insights from research with RPC partners Sally Theobald and Joanna Crichton with multiple acknowledgements!

2. Structure of this ‘work in progress’ • Introduction • Methods • Findings and discussion: • Conceptual framework • Context and strategic opportunism • Links: Networking and coalitions • Evidence: Sticky messages and rallying ideas. • The type of influence • The challenge of attributing change • Emerging implications • Concluding questions

3. Introduction • Growing interest in GRIPP of research to policy • Growing acknowledgement of complexity • Literature early stage- but is fast growing • Overseas Development Institute (ODI) RAPID programme (Crewe and Young, 2002, Court and Young 2003, Court, Hovland and Young, 2005) • IDRC (Earl, Carden and Smutylo, 2001, IDRC, 2004, Carden, 2009) • Institute for Development Studies (IDS) (Sumner, Perkins and Lindstrom, 2008 and 2009) • ESRC (Davies, Nutley and Walter, 2005).

4. Research questions explored in the paper • How do SRH, HIV and AIDS research organisations define their policy influencing aims, and who are the policy makers they seek to influence? • What influencing strategies are used by SRH, HIV and AIDS research organisations and how do these relate to context and subject area? • From the perspective of research organisations, why is research taken up or not taken up by policy makers in the field of SRH, HIV and AIDS?

5. Methodology Mixed methods: qualitative interviews, questionnaires, case studies and a literature review A collaborative and reflexive approach: • Research authors working in RPCs/participant observers • Study instruments were developed collaboratively • Analysis ongoing: Inputs into analysis welcome during this meeting • So both a research study and an opportunity for reflection about our research and policy engagement work and exchange of ideas and lessons learnt.

6. Interviews conducted

7. Interview and analysis process • Recorded, transcribed and imported into MAXQDA • Careful reading of the interview transcripts: collaboratively identified 8 broad themes, 66 subthemes • Ethics and anonymity • Identified concepts and frameworks from the literature on the research to policy interface that resonated with the themes emerging from our data – conceptual framework

8. Qualitative Coding Process – example of one set of codes applied

10. The conceptual framework

11. Context and strategic opportunism • History/raison d’etre • institutionally embedded – HRU, BRAC • intensely connected – Lighthouse, REACH • supportive strategic – most northern institutions • Interviewees were reflective about how their institutional affiliation (history and raison d’etre) shaped their room for manoeuvre in the policy environment, and the implications for developing strategic alliances and coalitions

12. Views on policy influence • Diverse perceptions about what policy influence means and involves, shaped by profession, context, discipline and also institution

13. Different views of advocacy • A good academic is trained to […] state the […] cautions, the doubts, whereas those are fatal qualities for an advocate who has to simplify, dramatise, exaggerate. […] In religious terms an academic is a retiring theologian but not the rabble rousing preacher. Very few people can be a rabble rousing preacher and a deep thinking theologian at the same time.’ (Researcher, north). • ‘I’m pushy and I think of everything as an opportunity and I don’t shut doors and I keep resisting […] I am always looking for ways […] we can link up so there is something more than just that research in a book, because I’ve been working in country X since [year] and I work a lot with poverty and urban poverty and especially a lot of the work […] in urban slums, I think the rights perspective or the structural inequalities’ (Researcher, south)

14. Institutional challenges to research engagement ‘[Policy influencing] is something that I am very committed to […] but […] I think as a researcher within UK academia it is not an easy balance, it’s not what I’m judged by. […] the universities […] would much rather that I had an article in social science and medicine, despite the fact that in my experience nobody makes a decision based on social science and medicine, they might look at WHO documents but that doesn’t count, there’s […] no impact factor associated with those kinds of policy outputs’ (Researcher, north) • Researchers based in the south face multiple challenges too

15. Policy environments • District, provincial, national, international • Policy trends and financial flows change quickly, yet influencing policy often takes a long time (Historical timing and serendipity)  ‘… [ in some cases] entry points for influence are ignored by academics who think just because you have the evidence something will happen and actually it’s a very long process of forming relationships of trust, understanding how legislation’s brought in, how policy is brought in, and that happens sometimes very quickly and swiftly’ (Communications officer) • Formal and less formal structures and role of Technical Working Groups • Openness and receptivity

16. Links: Networking and coalitions • Who is a policy maker?: diverse views based on strategic analysis of the context, professional/institutional goals and subject area • Increasing complexity → new challenges and windows of opportunity • HIV – new policy players • Simultaneous vertical and horizontal approaches to health funding and planning • Rapid change among stakeholders versus slow uptake of research evidence

17. Working across the research cycle: A paradigm shift? • From research dissemination to across the research cycle – e.g. HRU stakeholder committees, REACH stakeholder advisory committee (time/resource challenging) ‘My experience in X has been that often being at the right place at the right time is what really opens the door to increased involvement […] so […] for us it’s not a matter of planning a set date on which we are going to interact with the MOH and give a presentation its sitting there at the table all year long and then when you see that moment arise in a meeting you can put your foot in the door.’ (Communications officer)

18. Strategic alliances with other influential or mediating actors • To help messages to ‘stick’ in a fast changing context: • INDEPTH and Nana Oye Lithur –change law • HEARD and Mayor - championing research at provincial level • Lighthouse and MOH – ART monitoring data

19. Relationships between researchers and communications experts Researcher disincentives can lead to challenges: ‘working with academics that's quite challenging I mean they don’t really share things with you very much and not all of them see really the value of communications necessarily or even what communications work might be and also they are slightly fearful of it. Sometimes for good reason if you have been miss-quoted in the press then I’m sure you wouldn’t necessarily want to do that work again for example. So it is a challenge to try and sell the value of communications whilst doing it at the same time’ (Communications officer) • Reducing communications jargon, and increasing clarity and awareness about what is communications

20. Researchers and communications experts (cont.) Very positive working relationships too:  • ‘the role of our research communications officers has changed the way that we as researchers […] relate to influencing work policy work. They are experts at that and without their help […] we will still be kind of publishing like little interesting reports but now its much more diverse and strategic and proactive’ (Researcher, north) Towards encouraging cultures of mutual support within and between, eg EFA - CoP

21. Evidence: Sticky messages and rallying ideas • Commonality in research subject matter, big differences in methodological approach • Perceptions about policy makers’ receptiveness to different methods (modelling, quant, maps, voices) ‘Oh I think, yes, I think it goes through fashionable waves, at the moment everybody wants modelling’ (researcher north) • Mixed bag approaches • Strategy of immersion

22. Quality, credibility and reflexivity ‘I think quality of research is important, reputation of the institutions undertaking the research. I also think things like personal relationships are really important too’. (Communication staff) ‘At the national level I would always take a step back. I think it is the prerogative and actually the duty of the national researchers to be the people at the forefront. They are the credible people […] to their national government.’ (Northern researcher) • Some researchers emphasised the importance of thinking critically about the policy implications of their findings – both the scope and limitations before doing policy engagement

23. How to frame research findings:

24. How to frame? • Strategic framing – MDGs, HR, scale up, balancing health and rights • Some avoided the term ‘rights’ – too problematic • Research in order to influence versus research as a contribution to knowledge as progress. • In the SRH/HIV and AIDS field, some researchers consciously use their research to try and change policy or academic discourses e.g. gender and masculinity or the need to broaden out health economics • Some organisations reinforce positive discourses by consistently promoting a message, for example the REACH Trust tries to continuously promote the concept of equity in health.

25. The type of research influence

26. The challenge of attributing change to particular research projects  Different views: nigh impossible, to pragmatic indicators • ‘In terms of going back a stage to, can we keep track of how much our evidence might have influenced policy I think it’s just really, really hard, I really do, it’s simply hard to get hold of the documents and b), you know, how could you cite causality.’ (Researcher north) Sumner et al (2009) more bang for your buck Outcome mapping IDRC – contribution over attribution

27. Emerging implications for people who generate, communicate and use research evidence Ultimately: Building creative and effective coalitions for research engagement takes time, resources and capacity, and this needs to be acknowledged by funders and research institutions alike

28. For donors • Potential for useful dialogue with researchers about their policy engagement concerns and dilemmas • Help to facilitate joint lessons learning and build the capacity of researchers to communicate and track impact • More clarity needed on what communications is, what role research evidence can play in policy and the various channels for influence • Communications strategies on an RPC- or project-by-project basis? Need for strategies to be of direct practical relevance to the partner institutions and easily operationalised • Tensions in the RPC model about funding to cover primary research (particularly collaborative projects) and argue donors could do more to enhance access to research funding that is adequate to cover this.

29. For all stakeholders • Influencing strategies must be built on both a good understanding of policy processes and needs, and of the significance and limitations of research evidence. • Approaches to research attribution/ contribution need to be grounded in the complexity of context, links and evidence. • Reduce communications jargon. Raise awareness of the policy engagement activities researchers already do • There’s a need for flexibility/open mindedness about what type of communications work is appropriate for particular types of research and that different partners and individuals can have a different comparative advantages. • Change researchers’ professional incentives so that policy influence is rewarded eg by including policy engagement in the next RAE formulation.

30. Concluding questions • Are some kinds of SRH/HIV/AIDS policy issue (mainstream, contested, neglected), more suited to some kinds of strategies than others? How does this relate to context? • How can researchers and communication specialists capture impact/influence/attribution/contribution in a way that is practical and non-time consuming? • How can incentives for researchers be changed to reward both good quality research and policy relevance? Given the complexity of tracking research impact how can policy relevance be captured? • Since researchers are trying to influence an increasingly diverse range of actors, what term best captures the audiences we are trying to reach? • What should a research agenda to take forward these issues look like?