What to expect when you’re not expecting: The Birth of LUMEN
LRaPP launches a network for London-based knowledge mobilisers working in Higher Education Institutions, with the help of Audrey Tan at Queen Mary's University of London
An extreme introvert by nature, networking events usually fill me with the dread reserved for a trip to the dentist or the annual barbecue with the in-laws – painful, but obligatory! So how did it come about that I was instigating the organisation of one of these torturous networking events?
The conception
Let’s go back to March. Being one of the few professional services staff with policy engagement experience at Queen Mary University London I wanted to know what kind of policy engagement support was being offered across London’s universities. While the Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN) exists as a national network, beyond the London Research and Policy Partnership (LRaPP) initiative, there’s nothing bringing London policy knowledge mobilisers together. With the help of an intern, I mapped out every London university and where their policy engagement support sat. But then what? A networking event bringing everyone together seemed like a necessary evil.
The birth
LRaPP, co-led by the Greater London Authority (GLA) and University of London (UoL), seemed like an ideal mechanism through which to host a networking event for London-based policy knowledge mobilisers. With the enthusiasm of colleagues from the LRaPP Executive Team (Ben Rogers, Aiysha Qureshi, Julia Wodzinska, Sarah Jasim, Michelle Reeves and Ben Cook) we planned an event to launch the London Universities’ Knowledge Mobilisers Engagement Network (LUMEN). Lumen, a unit of light quantity where the higher the unit means the brighter the light, seemed like a fitting acronym for something we hope will represent the shining power of our combined experience. Operating in a university reality where funding for engagement is shrinking, we need to break out of our silos. There are so many opportunities to collaborate across training, fellowship, event programmes etc., and we hope LUMEN can facilitate this.
The launch
On the 27th June 2024 we welcomed about 30 colleagues to the launch event featuring presentations from Ben Rogers, LRaPP Co-Lead and Professor of Practice at UoL, on LRaPP’s evolution since 2021 and Jeremy Skinner, GLA Assistant Director of Strategy, Insight and Intelligence, on the current London policy context. We moved into world café discussions focused on four topics: career journeys, approaches to policy engagement, navigating London government, and institutional support for policy engagement. Key points from each of the topic discussions were as follows:
What support would you like when engaging with London policymakers?
- We need mechanisms, both human and software-based, to help with matchmaking between the GLA and local authorities and researchers.
- Initial introductory meetings with GLA policy teams are positive but the engagement is hard to maintain and a dedicated point of contact for strategic work within the GLA would be most welcome.
What does your career journey look like? What brought you to the networking event?
- It was interesting to see that many people in attendance had a PhD with almost everyone having a Master's degree. Attendees were based in their university’s impact team; public, policy or civic engagement team, respectively, or a centrally based strategic office.
- Motivations for attending the LUMEN launch event included sharing learning and contacts, leveraging networks, reducing competition and finding opportunities for collaboration, breaking down silos, and learning best practice from peers.
How do you approach policy engagement in your role? What tools do you use? Are there any frameworks which underpin your programmes?
- Many attendees used existing networks like the Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN) and conferences as a way to engage with colleagues and get new ideas for programmes.
- Interestingly, approaches varied significantly between institutions. Whilst some primarily provide one-to-one and ad hoc support to engaged academics, others have embedded their functions through ‘policy institutes’ and developed structures through which academics of all kinds can engage.
How does your organisation currently support academic-policy-practice engagement?
- Universities support their staff and academics to do policy engagement through a range of activities, such as fellowships/secondments, supporting funding bids, training, mentoring and relationship brokering.
- Opportunities for collaboration between organisations include working together on training provision to avoid duplication of effort and learn from best practice, joint funding bids, and rolling out successful programmes to other institutions.
The growth
It was brilliant to see the number of rich discussions that took place throughout the afternoon. At its heart, we want LUMEN to be a grassroots initiative that continues to spark these connections. We want the network to be shaped by its members. With this in mind, our next steps over the coming months will be to organise some smaller focus groups. We’ll also be developing a digital space for the group to foster partnership working.
I’m buoyed by the enthusiasm expressed by those at the launch event and, equally, by those who couldn’t attend but have been in contact. I can’t wait to see how LUMEN develops over the next year as it’s driven by our members’ needs. Preserving oral hygiene, maintaining family relations, building connections with colleagues - all valuable outcomes well worth a bit of discomfort for this self-described social recluse.
If you work at a London Higher Education Institution in the knowledge mobilisation space and are interested in joining LUMEN, please get in touch with Aiysha Qureshi (aiysha.qureshi@london.ac.uk).
Audrey Tan is the Head of Public Engagement, Centre for Public Engagement, at Queen Mary University London.
This page was last updated on 15 October 2024