Designing an event to attract a policy audience

The UCL Public Policy team provides support, advice and guidance to enable effective academic-policy engagement and develops strategic partnerships with policy stakeholders including the support for many events. Find our tips on running a successful event to attract policy audiences.

Why hold an event?

Hosting an event aimed at a policy audience can be a very effective way of communicating your research expertise. It can also provide a valuable opportunity for engagement and for developing useful contacts.

The purpose of an event can vary but can include:

to promote a piece of research or a research centre or launch a particular activity
to map stakeholder interests or engage them with your research
to establish longer-term relationships with policy stakeholders to better understand the policy landscape you wish to engage with
to provide an opportunity for dialogue and debate on a particular issue

Questions to ask yourself

Why are you hosting the event?
What do you want the event to achieve?
What will you do to ensure equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) is front and centre to planning and delivery of your event?
How do you plan to engage a diverse policy audience?
How do you plan to make the event accessible?
Is the event primarily intended to showcase research, provide an opportunity for dialogue, build a relationship, or something else?
What outcomes would you like to see from the event? How can you evaluate these? What format?

Consider a number of different formats, including:

public event – a larger event, open to all, focused on a policy issue. Usually includes both academic and policy speakers, and audience questions
seminar – a smaller event, usually with an invited audience, with short presentations and a discussion
roundtable – a small, invitation-only event with a chaired discussion on a particular issue
workshop – a small, invitation-only event with a particular focus on participants identifying and working through problems to generate solutions
online – events can be online or in person. If online, think about which platforms to use, given your audience size and event type; UCL recommends MS Teams

Topic

To attract a diverse policy audience, your event should be focused on a policy-relevant issue. Generally speaking, the more topical an issue is or the more your event addresses a policy ‘need’, the more likely you are to engage policy professionals.

Try to use an engaging but clear title for your event.

Partnering with a policy organisation to co-produce the event, or otherwise involving policy stakeholders (e.g. through an invited speaker), is likely to increase its appeal and impact.