A brilliant recent piece on the LSE Impact blog about the importance and nature of trust in ensuring that research influences policy makers got me thinking about the implications for advocacy organizations. First a slightly truncated version of the piece, then my musings. This from the LSE Impact authors: ‘Trust is often invoked as a key ingredient to establishing effective

I’m a critic of the degree of overselling of randomized control trials (RCTs), but there’s no denying that the randomistas have been phenomenally successful snake oil salesmen and women, persuading large chunks of Big Aid to adopt their approach to what constitutes evidence and truthiness. If you want to learn how they did it, try reading their 3 part blog

Another day, another coffee conversation about how to ensure that academic research has impact beyond the ivory tower/dreaming spires. This time it was with Duncan McLaren, who has just started as a fellow Professor in Practice (is this A Thing now?) at the Lancaster Environment Centre and has been asked to look into how its research can get greater pick-up

Is it possible to achieve a sustainable future where the social needs of all are met without exhausting the planet’s resources? Julia Steinberger shares lessons learnt from communicating her research findings. Earlier this year, my colleagues and I published an article entitled “A Good Life For All Within Planetary Boundaries” in Nature Sustainability. In this article, we aimed to test the central