What is a policy brief

Policy briefs are a useful way to summarise your research and provide evidence and recommendations for policy audiences.

A policy brief should be written with your identified policy audience in mind and in such a way that it can help to inform their work. It should acknowledge the policy context in which your research sits and provide clear links from your findings and recommendations to current policy challenges.

Policy briefs should be evidence-based but also focus on clear communication (written in plain English and as concisely as possible).

With your audience in mind, preparing a policy brief typically involves six important components:

Key messages: What are the most important aspects of your research for policymakers?
Audience: Who is it intended for? Have you identified them and how will you reach them?
Purpose: Does your research advocate for new policies or amendments to old ones? Does it highlight an issue that requires policy attention? Does it have clear policy recommendations or implications?
Collaboration: Would your policy brief benefit from being co-created with policymakers or practitioners in order that its recommendations are more likely to resonate with intended audiences? (This won't apply to everyone, but sometimes the co-creation or sharing of early or near-final drafts with intended audiences can help to fine tune the policy recommendations you make).
Timing: Is there an upcoming 'moment' when this topic will be particularly salient and newsworthy?
Publicity: Beyond publishing a policy brief online, how will you publicise it? Ways of doing this could include events, blogs or media engagement.

It is important to note that policy briefs are just one mechanism for policy engagement. Produced in isolation or sporadically and without relevant policy networks in place, they tend to be less effective at generating engagement with policy audiences. To increase your chances of having an impact, policy briefs should be developed alongside other policy engagement activities.

Sections within a policy brief

Typically, a policy brief will be between three to five pages. Elements of a policy brief usually include:

Title: A relevant title that is informative and interesting.
Executive summary: Short paragraphs that sum up the policy brief, its key messages and policy recommendations or implications.
Introduction / overview: A clear opening that sets the scene for the research and puts it in the context of current policy debates or challenges.
Findings: You need evidence to support a policy brief, but this needs to be presented in an accessible way for non-specialists. Focus more on your results than your methodology (although this can be referenced).
Conclusions: A summary of what your findings mean in the context of current policy challenges and what they point towards.
Recommendations: Actionable, realistic policy recommendations or implications.
Extra details: Where appropriate, provide details of any funding used for the research and/or any other acknowledgements, citations or disclaimers.
Contact details.

Audiences for policy briefs

The most effective way to ensure that your brief gets to the right people is to have an active network of relevant policymakers already engaged with you and your research. A secondary method is to create a targeted list of relevant policy contacts within Government and Parliament, as well as other policy actors working on related topics, who may find your policy brief relevant. Our resource on stakeholder mapping can help you with this.

Social media can be a useful means to disseminate your findings, including with relevant high-profile organisations or influencers. Platforms like LinkedIn will enable you to search for people working on related topics, providing contact details for individuals and organisations who might be interested in your findings.

Hosting events, writing about your findings for blogs such as the IPR's or for The Conversation, or generating media coverage about your findings are other ways of broadening the reach of your policy brief.

Recommendations

Policymakers are busy, so policy briefs should be concise and targeted to key audiences.
Focus on clear communication as your audience are unlikely to be specialists in your research area.
Consider partnering with an external organisation, or think tank, in co-authoring a policy brief.
If you intend to produce a policy brief, ensure you have appropriately costed this.
If your policy brief is an IPR research project, or collaborative project, contact the IPR (ipr@bath.ac.uk) to discuss the production of an IPR Policy Brief.
For other enquiries please contact the University's creative team design@bath.ac.uk to discuss the production and professional design for your policy brief.

Further information

Learning from others

Read about Bath academics who have developed policy briefs as part of their research:

Policy briefs

How to produce and disseminate a policy brief.