The Center for Equality and Social Justice is excited to offer a one-day workshop for interested faculty, staff, and graduate students.

The workshop, “Policy Engagement Workshop,” is offered by Scholars Strategy Network with support from the William T. Grant Foundation. Briefly, the Scholars Strategy Network seeks to improve public policy and strengthen democracy by connecting scholars and their research to policymakers, citizens associations, and the media. The “Policy Engagement Workshop” will be a full day of training, including breakfast and lunch. We will be able to accommodate around 50 participants for this interactive training. Workshop participants will leave with a toolkit of concrete strategies for using their expertise to inform policy.

Policy Engagement Workshop

Skills taught in this training include:

• How to develop ongoing, reciprocal, trusting relationships with policymakers and civic intermediaries (groups that bring research to policymakers)

• How to assess the resources, needs, and opportunities of policymakers

• How to access the timing of the policy-making process in a given issue arena to identify windows of opportunity for different forms of engagement

• How relationships with policymakers that start early in the research process can lead to research questions that matter to researchers and policymakers

• How ongoing policy engagement can be a part of academic success for researchers

Why this Matters

The nation has thousands of federal, state, and local policymakers. We hope that participants in this workshop will build stronger relationships with many of them, leading to the increased use of research evidence in policy at every level.

What is the Scholars Strategy Network (SSN)?

Scholars Strategy Network (SSN) was founded in 2009, and since then, social scientists in this nationwide, nonpartisan, interdisciplinary association have worked to increase the use of research and evidence in the policymaking process. Today, SSN is made up of over one thousand researchers in 48 states. At the core of their work is the assertion that strong, reciprocal relationships between researchers and policymakers increase the likelihood that research evidence will be used to inform policy and practice. SSN and its members believe that university scholars should share their work with fellow citizens—they spell out the implications of their research in ways that are broadly accessible, engage in consultations with policymakers in state capitals, and make regular contributions to the media and share findings with journalists and bloggers.

Details:

This workshop will be held Wednesday, October 24^th, 8:30 AM – 4 PM in the Columbia Room at the Hilary J. Boone Center. 

TO RESERVE YOUR SEAT, go to: https://goo.gl/forms/qGKKgEeRZtwDL5Ag1

Seats will be limited, so register soon. If workshop capacity is reached, preference will be given to CESJ affiliates, but all UKY faculty, staff, and graduate students are welcome to apply. Please RSVP by October 15^th to allow us to plan facility and food requirements.