Impact tips
In this page, you can find materials and tips to help you make sure that your research outputs are read and understood by policymakers, so that they can ultimately inform policy development.
Top tips for presenting research to a policy audience
The following list of tips was produced together with Scottish Government colleagues. It can be used for reports, presentations, blogs or other formats you use to present your research.
Our audience is time poor and not science specialists. It is important to keep reports, briefs and presentations short and in plain language.
The reader should be able to skim your text and understand:
- what is the problem/issue/challenge
- why it matters
- what can be done
Answer the policy questions. Set the science in context, explaining the meaning of the research findings. Be constructive, identify solutions and focus on meaning, not method, in presenting your work.
Keep it short. If your summary is more than two pages it likely won’t be read. Think of policy engagement as a short statement that you can unpack with detail, method or references if you are asked.
Make it visual if a graph/infographic can illustrate your report, but keep it accessible. Seek inspiration in books or online resources on best data visualisation.
Highlight benefits of your work. Quantify them if you can. How much public money can be saved, directly or through better value for money? What would it bring to Scotland? What is the broader picture, eg relevance to current strategies/plans, other public interest hot topics? Remember to look outside your immediate field, eg fuel poverty is an important issue in relation to energy efficiency and energy use in buildings.
Read through your text or presentation and consider what the one point you would say to the Minister is.
These tips are also relevant to increase the impact of your research. Study relevant Scottish Government policy documents and write two pages, with key points up front, about how your findings can help meet targets.
The dont’s
Do not suggest that further research is needed, unless there is a clear reason and it is linked to achieving a policy outcome.
Do not send research papers or anything you haven’t summarised in a paragraph or some bullet points.
Best practice
Researchers who work on our projects have the opportunity to inform policy development. We work with several policy teams from the Scottish Government each year and their feedback on the impact of our research projects is very positive. For some examples of impact, please visit our Case studies page.
Related links
Tips for writing research proposals
ClimateXChange projects and reports