Our services
Services that the team provide to academics and officials
We provide a consultancy service for officials who want to get outside expertise and insight into policymaking. We are part of government so we are easy to commission. As officials we understand what kind of analysis and advice our colleagues need. Our work normally falls across three main categories:
Engagement: We organise workshops, seminars, visits, conferences and networking events that bring officials and outside experts together to share insights and ideas.
Analysis: We work with academics and others to research and explain the latest evidence on topics we’ve been asked to look at, and we provide advice on what this evidence means for policy.
Ideas: We work with leading thinkers to generate, develop and test new ideas that our customers might like to take forward.
Examples of our services
Typical engagement services might include the following:
- Workshop: Interactive session between academics and policy makers focused on sharing insights and ideas about a policy problem
- Expert panel: Set-up and help manage a panel of the most relevant experts to inform policy thinking
- Seminar series: A seminar series brings a stream of selected experts to share their insights and ideas with your team
Typical analysis services might include the following:
- Rapid review: A short report summarising the views of a selection of leading thinkers on a topic
- Deep dive; A detailed report summarising the latest evidence on a topic, interviews with a range of experts and a discussion of the policy implications
- Think piece: A short note written by an expert, edited and shaped by us to draw out the policy implications
We also broker research collaborations between academics and officials to address agreed policy questions where applied research would be valuable.
Commissioning us
Commissioning us is straightforward. We’ll have an initial conversation with you to understand your problem and discuss how we can help. We’ll then produce a scoping pack with suggested experts, the services you might find useful and our costs. Once we’ve agreed on the work programme and the timeframe, we’ll ask you to sign a letter of engagement setting out the scope of the work and the price, and we’ll get started. This process usually takes no more than two weeks, though we can work more quickly if required.