Tome Sandevski heads the Mercator Science-Policy Fellowship-Programme and the Science meets Regions pairing scheme at the Rhine-Main Universities

If they want to transfer knowledge to policymakers, researchers can write policy papers, blogs, tweets, or op-eds. Face-to-face meetings are also very effective tools of knowledge transfer, and their value is recognised by policymakers and researchers alike. Therefore, the Commission Staff Working Document “Supporting and Connecting Policymaking in the Member States with Scientific Research” from 2022 recommended “creating more knowledge exchange opportunities such as innovation camps and pairing schemes to facilitate networking between scientists and policymakers, including also modalities that enable policymakers to visit scientific organisations and have interviews with many scientists.”

Although numerous researchers engage with policymakers in various ways, initiatives on the university level encompassing knowledge exchange opportunities for researchers from various disciplines and policymakers from a wide range of institutions are rare. Since 2016, the Mercator Science-Policy Fellowship-Programme and – since 2023 - the Science meets Regions pairing scheme of the Rhine-Main Universities have been creating these knowledge exchange opportunities. The Rhine-Main Universities are an alliance of Goethe University Frankfurt, Technical University Darmstadt, and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. The programmes are supported by the Stiftung Mercator and the European Union.

The dialogue initiatives are structured around face-to-face meetings between policymaking professionals (as well as NGO staff and journalists) and researchers. The initiatives aim at providing practitioners with scientific expertise on the policy issues they are dealing with, while the researchers learn about policy perspectives on their research topics.

How do the programmes work? The Rhine-Main Universities circulate calls for applications to hundreds of policymaking institutions, civil society organisations and media in Germany and abroad. When applying to our programmes, policymaking professionals have to elaborate on their need for academic expertise in motivation letters as well as on the topics they are interested in. Once accepted into the programmes, each policymaking professional receives a comprehensive list of researchers with whom he or she can meet. Our work has been inspired by the policy fellowship programmes at the Centre for Science and Policy and Cambridge University. Similar approaches can be found at the University of Guelph and the Leibniz in Parliament programmes of the German Leibniz Association.

How have these initiatives fared? Since 2016, the Rhine-Main Universities have organised almost 2,500 face-to-face or virtual meetings between 189 policymaking professionals, NGOs staff, journalists, and more than 700 researchers at the Rhine-Main Universities and other research institutions in the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main area.

Each fellowship cohort conducts joint visits to the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main area twice during their fellowship, and each policymaker has meetings with approximately eight researchers during each visit. If the policy fellow needs scientific expertise in the future, he or she will have a network of 16 researchers they have already met and whom they can approach. Likewise, the participating researchers can approach their counterparts in policymaking institutions if they want to disseminate their knowledge.

Where do the policy fellows come from?

Background of policy fellows in terms of organisations

The following table provides an overview of the share of the academic disciplines consulted in terms of the number of meetings conducted with researchers.

Although our dialogue programmes are open to all kinds of topics, most topics that are chosen have to do with economics, social sciences, and the humanities. uestions on current political and social developments, communication, media, and the effects of digitisation processes on the economy, society, and politics are particularly popular.

Our evaluation surveys indicate that about 40% of the policy fellows ask very specific questions, such as “How does the use of smartphones affect the reading skills of children in primary schools?” About 40% of the policy fellows are interested in the “big questions” in their policy fields (e.g., “How stable are financial markets?”) while about 20% of the policy fellows use the time to gain an overview of more general policy issues (“How does AI change our societies?”).

Both researchers and policy professionals are very satisfied with the programme. Several factors may explain this high level of satisfaction.

• Bidirectional knowledge transfer: While policymaking professionals learn about academic expertise, the participating researchers learn about policy perspectives on their research.
• High increase in knowledge through dialogue: Face-to-face meetings are a very effective means of communication. The interlocutors can decide on the topics they want to discuss.
• Voluntary nature: Only those who are intrinsically motivated apply and participate in the programmes. So, one could ask if we are not just preaching to the converted. But motivation is not the only issue when it comes to promoting dialogue between researchers and policymakers. Both need opportunities to meet. Also, the constraints of availability have to be factored in, which leads to the next point.
• Time efficiency: The policymaking professionals can pick the researchers they would like to meet from comprehensive lists, rather than having to browse through websites for hours to identify possible experts. Similarly, the participating scientists receive requests for meetings from the office of the programmes, including possible time slots and thematic interests of the policymaking professionals. Neither the professionals nor the researchers have to spend time on organising the meetings.
• Open dialogue in an informal setting: the face-to-face meetings offer a rare opportunity for both sides to have thorough and open conversations. Unlike hearings in parliaments or formal meetings in ministries, the face-to-face meetings take place in an informal setting, which helps the participants open up. No records of the meetings are produced.
• Diversity in terms of participants, topics and academic disciplines: Numerous policymaking institutions – from the local to the international – have sent professionals to our programmes. The diversity of participating institutions fosters networking. The dialogue with researchers from different disciplines enables the policy fellows to become acquainted with different perspectives on their interests. If, for example, a policy fellow asks how energy consumption can be reduced, we can organise meetings with researchers from architecture on the subject of energy-saving construction, meetings with engineering experts on energy-saving technical solutions. We can organise meetings with economists on energy taxes, meetings with political scientists on government policies, with marketing experts on the issue of the development of new products or sustainable consumption, and meetings with educational experts on the issue of teaching energy-saving behaviour in schools. Likewise, participation in the programme provides the opportunity for researchers to have conversations with policy professionals from various organisations.

These face-to-face meetings have resulted in numerous follow-up activities such as joint events, talks by researchers at the institutions of policy professionals, and joint research projects.

Our fellowship programme brings professionals and scientists together in hundreds of meetings who would otherwise probably never meet. Our evaluation surveys show that about half of the researchers had no or only occasional contact with policymakers prior to participating in our programmes. The same observation applies to the participating policymaking professionals.

Thus, our dialogue initiatives prove that there is great potential for programmes bringing policymaking professionals and researchers together.