Credit: 2024 Alejandro Salinas Lopez “alperucho”.

2 December 2025

By Jessica Ko

In an era where policy decisions increasingly demand robust evidence, science-policy organisations (SPOs) are emerging as pivotal actors in shaping more equitable and effective public systems. However, extant research has largely focused on the role of the individual knowledge broker rather than organisational factors in the policymaking process. This is a research gap that our British Academy-funded research project hopes to address. (more…)

Credit: Antenna on Unsplash.

18 September 2025

By Rob Davies

In the world of academic research, producing groundbreaking studies is only half the battle. The other half (arguably the more challenging part) is ensuring your research actually influences policy and practice. At CLOSER, we’ve learned that knowledge mobilisation and policy impact is like an iceberg: what you see on the surface is just a fraction of what’s happening beneath. (more…)

Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones with Keri Wong and UCL Institute of Education students. Credit: Courtesy of Keri Wong.

16 September 2025

By Keri Wong

‘A day in a life…’ is an excellent role-play experience for children dreaming big and teenagers wanting to find out about career options – but why not have this for academics, too? Like many academics, I’ve spent most of my career trying hard to publish, not perish. This year, however, I got the chance to extend my policy-related networking, this time with a visit to the House of Lords, where scientific evidence is used to scrutinise, ‘sense check’ and inform government decisions. (more…)

Zarah Sultana MP. Credit: House of Commons via Flickr. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

19 August 2025

By Jonathan Galton

“Britain’s new Islamo-Leftist alliance won’t last” claimed a Telegraph headline in July, predicting a dire end for the new party launched by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. The author, Conservative peer Daniel Hannan, pointed in warning to the fate of communists who supported Iran’s 1979 revolution only to be arrested, tortured and even killed under the new regime. A few weeks later, in the same paper, columnist Zoe Strimpel opined that “The Islamo-Left alliance is beginning to fray with almost comic predictability”. Noting the existence of an organised Muslim faction in the Green Party, she wonders how a “party that is all guns blazing for LGBTQ+ rights” will manage to accommodate a “constituency that embraces the ultra-conservative credos of Sharia law”. So what exactly is Islamo-Leftism and is it already on its deathbed? After three years of research into the complex connections and overlaps between British Muslims and diverse political left(s) I conclude that it is a caricature that shows no signs of going away. (more…)

Credit: Cultura Creative via Adobe Stock.

31 July 2025

By Jon Swain and Brendan King

In this post we report on an ethnographic study exploring the lives of a group of young Black, Asian and minority ethnic (‘BAME’) men in London (King and Swain 2025), drawing on our wider work on masculinities (King 2022; King and Swain 2022). We highlight the often-contrasting roles and power dynamics experienced by these men between ‘the street’ and the home. In particular, we note how much they loved and respected their mothers, set against the derogatory attitudes they often appeared to hold towards other women. Our research suggests that policy is missing a trick in not better recognising, and working with, these mothers in countering the pull of violent and misogynistic street cultures. (more…)

Credit: EduLife Photos via Adobe Stock.

21 January 2025

By Aine McAllister

Highly skilled refugees and asylum seekers encounter multifaceted barriers to accessing postgraduate study in UK higher education. These include wider societal and structural barriers as well as those specific to university entry. Often, the latter is a twofold barrier: to access at all, and to access commensurate with existing qualifications, professional experience and achievements. (more…)

Credit: tonefotografia via Adobe Stock.

26 November 2024

By Veronica Osorio Calderon and Mukdarut Bangpan

The growth of Evidence-Informed Decision-Making (EIDM)

Evidence-informed decision-making (EIDM) is the idea that decisions, particularly in policy, should be based on the best available research, along with other factors like public opinion, costs and practicality. As an approach, it aims to make decision-making more systematic and transparent by using a structured way of identifying and applying research evidence in policies.

EIDM has gained significant traction in recent years. This was especially clear at the Global Evidence Summit in Prague in September, which brought together 1,800 attendees to discuss the role of evidence in policymaking. Just shortly afterwards, UK Research and Innovation and the Wellcome Trust committed approximately £56.5 million to further EIDM, globally. This latest example of funding to support EIDM is dedicated to advancing “living evidence” initiatives and, specifically, leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance evidence use in policymaking. (more…)

The Knife Angel sculpture, made from over 100,000 seized blades. Photo credit: Ian Livesey.

19 July 2024

By Rachel Seabrook

Throughout the Labour Party’s 2024 general election campaign, tackling antisocial behaviour and youth violence were central themes. Amongst other commitments, Labour pledged to put 13,000 more neighbourhood police and community support officers on the beat and crack down on knife crime, including by introducing mandatory action plans for young people carrying knives, and bringing in tougher sanctions for the possession and sale of machetes, zombie knives and swords. (more…)

My name is not ‘asylum seeker’: Nadia Mendez Guevara assembles a section of the exhibition. Credit: IOE Communications.

2 May 2024

By Mette Louise Berg

This week, ‘My name is not asylum seeker!’, a pop-up exhibition based on the SOLIDARITIES research project, opens at Halifax Central Library. The exhibition focuses on the everyday lives and experiences of people who have sought asylum in the UK and are waiting for a decision on their application. During the waiting period, people seeking asylum are ‘dispersed’ to different parts of the country and housed in dispersal accommodation, often of very poor quality; most are not allowed to work. (more…)

UCL-convened workshop on Action for Climate Empowerment in the UK, November 2023. Credit Kate Greer, UCL.

30 November 2023

By Kate Greer

Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE) is a workstream of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), discussed previously on this blog, which seeks to engage all citizens in climate action via six areas of activity: education, training, public participation in decision-making, public access to information, public awareness, and international cooperation.

At a recent workshop for people and organizations whose work intersects with ACE, hosted by UCL, the diverse ways in which the ACE policy framework can be made concrete was apparent. The workshop brought together people whose work focuses on (…take a deep breath…): schools, higher and informal education; public engagement through faith communities, museums and the arts; advocacy on behalf of children, youth, people living with disabilities, and non-human species; alongside policy development and research funding. It was described by one participant as a ‘paper clip’ that held a disparate group of people and expertise together for half a day. Building on this metaphor, I wonder whether ACE can be viewed as ‘policy glue’ to hold them together over the longer term. (more…)