Surveying the landscape of UK university policy engagement – what are we doing differently and why?

Universities have only relatively recently started to invest in professional services relating to research communication, the impact agenda and in so doing policy engagement. Drawing on a survey of policy engagement functions in UK higher education institutions, Hannah Durrant and Eleanor MacKillop (Wales Centre for Public Policy, Cardiff University) identify four types of bodies with different purposes that have emerged in this nascent sector – the policy impact support office, the knowledge brokers, the policy evidence producers, and the demand-led relationship builders.