Engaging your policy audiences - Short course

Tuesday 22 July 2014 10:00 to 17:00
Institute of Development Studies, Brighton

Whether you are part of a research institution or programme or an advocacy organisation, understanding who your key policy audiences are and the best ways to engage with them is absolutely critical to achieving impact.

Is a policy briefing the most appropriate means of communicating your important new research findings or advocacy messages, or should you be investing in info-graphics, social media campaigns or high level policy events? How do you ensure you target your limited resources most effectively?
As part of the Achieving Influence and Impact series, this one day short course will seek to answer these critical questions and provide practical advice and guidance on how you can reach the right people, at the right time and through the right channels.

What will the course cover?

The course will provide practical guidance, tips, and lively discussion on how to develop successful research uptake and policy influencing plans. By the end of the day, participants will have:

• Gained a broad overview of research and policy communications, and how their own organisation's work fits within this spectrum of activities
• Improved their knowledge of the stakeholder mapping tools required to identify and prioritise key policy audiences.
• Developed their understanding of how different communications tools can be used to engage with different audiences.
• Outlined a number of ways in which they can apply learning from the course to the work of their own organisations and programmes.

It will be run by an experienced group of facilitators from the Institute of Development Studies' Communications and Knowledge Services teams led by IDS's Head of Communications James Georgalakis.

For more information, see the IDS website.