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About UCL's Knowledge Broker Academy
What is the Knowledge Broker Academy?
UCL Public Policy has spent over a decade refining pathways for academic-policy engagement, learning what works to maximise research impact. Despite this progress, many researchers and professional services staff still face barriers to engaging with policy, such as a lack of skills, opportunities, or support. In fact, 63% of UK researchers express interest in policy development work but lack the tools (skills and support) to participate effectively.
The KBA was created to address these challenges. It aims to foster inclusivity in academic-policy engagement across career stages, disciplines, and protected characteristics, offering participants the chance to develop skills, build networks, and enhance their impact.
What is the purpose of the KBA?
- Evidence use in policy: to develop academic policy engagement skills, including evidence scrutiny, synthesis, and communication capabilities.
- Adaptive relationships: to strengthen capacity for adaptive relationships, across perspectives as well as academic and policy disciplines and sectors.
- Academic policy engagement pathways: to increase knowledge of academic policy engagement pathways and the ability to navigate these effectively.
- Conscious leadership: to develop an ability to critically examine the roles, responsibilities, ethics and identities of a knowledge mobiliser.
- Institutional capacity-building: to increase institutional capacity for knowledge mobilisation and supporting evidence use.
On completion of the 2024 programme, KBA participants responded that they were more confident in every area of academic policy engagement that these objectives cover.
Eligibility, funding and time commitment
Awards of up to £10,000 are available until the end of the 2024/5 academic year. This funding will be directed towards salary buy-out for each participant, to ensure the KBA can be accounted for within normal working hours.
KBA Phase 1: Participants can expect to commit 0.5 days per week to phase I of the KBA from February – September 2025.
KBA Phase 2: After September 2025, a variety of opportunities will be available for participants to continue their policy engagement activity and consolidate their knowledge, skills, and network.
UCL Public Policy aims to embed policy engagement and impact widely across UCL. The KBA is open to academic and professional services staff, including early career researchers (broadly defined as someone within the first seven years of their research activity) from any UCL Faculty or Department. Both full-time and part-time staff are welcome to apply.
Unfortunately due to funding restrictions, those on short-term contracts cannot participate.
See more on programme phases in FAQs below.
How the KBA works
The KBA combines self-paced learning with hands-on application:
- Flexible Learning: Participants can tailor their learning journey, balancing self-directed training with structured engagements.
- Practical Application: Through one-on-one mentoring and peer learning sessions, participants apply their skills in real-world settings, working directly with policy professionals.
- Experiential Learning: The KBA emphasises "learning by doing," helping participants contextualise their skills and understand the diverse roles within the policymaking process.
In the pilot programme, 100% of participants reported increased confidence in understanding evidence use, achieving policy impact, and building adaptive relationships.
Our Ethos
UCL Public Policy is committed to increasing the diversity and inclusivity of its activities. We strongly encourage participants from under-represented groups (Minority Ethnic groups, LGBTQ+, and disabled staff) and will strive to support accessibility needs where possible.
Nominators and/or nominees are invited to discuss any specific accessibility needs with Sinéad Murphy, Policy Engagement Coordinator, who will oversee the delivery of the KBA. We are conscious that the policy space tends to reflect structural inequalities in similar sectors and welcome the opportunity for the KBA to facilitate an examination of how these inequalities feature in academic policy engagement.
2025 KBA Programme - frequently asked questions
- What are the key dates and deadlines?
- December 2024: Nominations open – Reach out to your Vice Dean or Head of Department to submit your nomination.
- 22 January 2024: Deadline to complete the online application form and confirm time buy-out with your line manager.
- 29 January 2024: Nominees contacted – UCL Public Policy will confirm receipt of nominations and follow up as needed.
- February 2025: Successful participants confirmed – Onboarding guidance provided.
- End of February 2025: KBA Part One begins – Participants start defining objectives and scheduling their first 1:1 mentoring meeting.
- What is included in the KBA programme curriculum
KBA Phase Part Guideline dates (TBC) Learning objective Phase 1 Part 1: Objective Setting Feb 2025 Through the programme we intend that participants will:
- Understand the policymaking process and the role the UCL community can play in supporting evidence-informed decision-making.
- Develop skills and resources that will help them to translate research and/or practitioner expertise into broader contexts, and engage with policy actors, networks and organisations.
- Feel well-versed in the varying pathways to policy impact, and gain experience in sharing their own work and expertise with different actors across the evidence ecosystem.
- Develop the basis of a policy intervention (such as, but not limited to a report, presentation, policy brief, slide deck, Select Committee submission, or policy fellowship).
- Be able to share ways of engaging with policy with others in the UCL community.
Part 2: Self-directed learning Feb – Apr 2025 Part 3: Peer-to-peer learning Feb – July 2025 Part 4: Engagement with policy professionals Feb – June 2025 Part 4: Engagement with policy professionals (continued) May – Sept 2025
Part 5: Peer-to-peer concludes – reflection period July – Sept 2025 Phase 2 Part 6: Preparation for knowledge brokerage delivery Sept 2025 – Mar 2026
- What funding is available to participate in the KBA programme, over what period?
Awards of up to £10,000 are available for each successful participant until the end of the 2024/5 academic year. This funding will be used to buy out your time for participation in the KBA – you can expect to commit approximately 0.5 days per week on the KBA from February – September 2025.
The KBA programme is flexible and the time commitment reflects this, e.g. your self-directed learning can take place at the time and pace of your choosing, whereas engagement with policy professionals will be arranged on specific dates and times.
After September 2025, you will be offered a range of options to support your future policy engagement activities. Funding is available to support these activities where needed.
- Who would benefit the most from KBA?
UCL Public Policy aims to embed policy engagement and impact widely across UCL. The KBA is open to academic and professional services staff, including early career researchers (broadly defined as someone within the first seven years of their research activity) from any UCL Faculty or Department. Unfortunately due to funding restrictions, those on short-term contracts cannot participate in this pilot programme.
Participants who may benefit the most from the KBA:
- Are interested in professional development and building leadership skills.
- Have capacity for collaboration, external engagement, and developing relationships.
- Are eager to see greater impact beyond their immediate spheres of influence and expertise.
- Engage in research or expertise which has potential to inform policy.
- How do I apply to participate in the KBA?
Before you start, please speak with your line manager to ensure your time can be bought out (approx. 0.5 days per week, Feb – Sept 2025).
Participants must be nominated by their faculty Vice-Dean for Research, Vice-Dean for Impact, Vice-Dean (External Engagement) or equivalent by emailing Sinéad Murphy, Policy Engagement Coordinator at sinead.e.murphy@ucl.ac.uk. [If you are unsure who this is relative to your role, or you would like to apply with a different nominator, please don’t hesitate to be in touch with Sinéad.]
Once the nomination has been received, applicants will be asked to share their goals and motivations through our online application form.
- Can more than one nomination be accepted from my faculty?
Yes – multiple nominations can be considered. Our priority is for as many UCL faculties as possible to be involved in the KBA, but if funding permits, more than one participant per faculty may be confirmed.
- What will I do after the KBA programme?
After September 2025, you will be offered a range of options to support your future policy engagement activities. Funding is available to support these activities where needed. As one of the KBA’s goals is to enhance UCL’s capacity to engage with policy, we are keen to support KBA participants as they share their learnings and/or contribute to academic-policy engagement within and beyond UCL.
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