Two incidents that occurred during the data collection stage of my master’s thesis made me recognize the importance of policy-engaged research. As a graduate student conducting research on infant and maternal mortality, I conducted a study at a health facility. I selected three local health facilities and scheduled appointments with the heads of nursing departments to conduct focus group discussions with pregnant women attending antenatal clinics. Additionally, I interviewed nurses responsible for caring for and educating these pregnant women on key questions relevant to my research. Most of the women who participated in the focus group discussion sessions confirmed an increase in the number of deaths among pregnant women and small children. They gave names of their friends who died in other villages in the weeks prior, because of complications, poverty, ignorance, and cultural practices. At the end of the sessions, they expressed their opinions regarding actions to reduce infant and maternal mortality for government officials at all levels.
In the second encounter, I spoke with farmers in three villages about the effects of climate change on agricultural production. These were women and men in rural communities battling untold environmental hardships and using traditional methods to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change. They lamented failed promises on machinery provision, loans and grants, provision of pesticides, storage facilities, and good roads to ease the difficulty encountered in moving their produce to commercial centres for sale. They erroneously tagged me as a government agent, and they, therefore, told me to write what I saw as their challenges and send my papers to the authorities.
In these two encounters, I was expected to become a policy advocate and a link to political actors, who can bring social problems to the attention of policymakers for social change.
The essence of coming up with conclusions and recommendations is to produce findings for different groups of research users, who will apply the informed recommendations in their own specific ways. Unless we bridge the town-gown gap by re-packaging our findings and recommendations in simple language and using appropriate media to deliver the messages to research users, it may be difficult for research findings to move beyond the online paywalls of academic publishers and reach those who need them. Thousands of studies from universities and colleges that would have been beneficial and solved some social problems are couched in academic jargons and padlocked, resulting in a situation where only academics are talking to one another by reviewing previous studies and extending empirical conversations. The relevance of academic research is partly tied to its capacity to inform policies and reduce social problems. Reflect on the COVID-19 experiences in 2020 and 2021: What if all scientific findings and recommendations on the virus had not been made available to policymakers but were instead locked behind paywalls?
Why should graduate students join their supervisors in becoming policy advocates? The world of politics is a tight and busy corner where politicians do not have time to read academic papers, understand scientific terms and jargon, and distill recommendations into policy ideas for deliberations and implementations. Therefore, they need academic researchers to delicately step into their terrain and advocate for research. As a policy advocate, you bridge the gap between the public and politicians, bringing social problems to the attention of politicians and communicating their policies and responses to the public. To do so, we need to learn how to write policy briefs and op-eds, appear on TV and radio to explain the implications of our findings to the public, use social media platforms to reach a wider audience with simple implications of our research. Additionally, we need to bring both parties together at various stages of the research process to discuss the problems and solutions, as well as collaborate in implementing those solutions.
For those of us interested in teaching and academic research after our degrees, I see this as an opportunity to make a positive impact. We need to push our findings to the domains of appropriate research users. Identify the industries, institutions, policy actors, and other users who can benefit from your study. Define the characteristics of these groups and locate the appropriate media for reaching them. Do a blog, podcast, YouTube video, and short paragraphs for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and produce leaflets and flyers beautifully designed to speak to your audiences. Engage in TV and radio shows to talk about your research, and collaborate with specific research users before, during, and after your research. This ensures they understand what you are doing and the significance of the findings and recommendations of your studies.
There is an unwritten ethical agreement in scientific research that the process and products of research are public commodities. If this is correct, we need to engage in policy advocacy as graduate students for our research to be more impactful. Be the change you want to see!