Event Details

Join us for a fascinating deep, yet quick, dive into the intricacies of policymaking from a panel of LU Academics and Alumni working in the fields of bioethics, disability, health, climate change, migration and finance. This talk is geared towards those studying Policy, with some prior knowledge.

Join us for a fascinating deep, yet quick, dive into the intricacies of policymaking from a panel of LU Academics and Alumni working in the fields of bioethics, disability, health, climate change, migration and finance. This talk is geared towards those studying Policy, with some prior knowledge, and is led by Dr Dayo Eseonu of the Ethics, Values and Policy Initiative (EVPI). All staff and students are welcome.

Policymaking: ‘what works’ and what doesn’t

Thursday, 27^th February 10am to 10.50am. The Library Events Space.

This talk will be followed, at 11am to 11.50am, by a Careers talk on Policy and how to make effective change, which will be advertised via the Careers Centre.

We are very pleased that the following staff and alumni are presenting:

Professor Stephen Wilkinson (PPR) works on issues in bioethics (e.g. ethical and legal questions raised by new reproductive technologies), from an Applied Philosophy perspective; he is currently a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.

He will discuss his experiences of trying to make academic research on ethics relevant to policy and policymakers and reflect on ‘what works’ and what doesn’t.

Professor Charlotte Baker’s (School of Global Affairs) research focuses on understandings of disability in sub-Saharan African contexts and their various impacts. She worked with stakeholders internationally to secure UN Resolution 47/8 on the elimination of harmful practices related to belief in witchcraft, passed in July 2021, and is now focusing on implementation.

Charlotte will discuss her experience of working with the special procedures of the UN Human Rights Council and the effective translation of research into policy. https://portal.lancaster.ac.uk/intranet/news/article/landmark-ruling-hailed-as-wonderful-news-for-albinism-community-1

Professor Heather Brown (Health Research Department) is particularly interested in the causes and consequences of health inequalities and evaluating policies that mitigate or exacerbate these inequalities, with her research expertise in applied econometrics. She is a member of the International Health Economics Association and Lead Convenor of the Teaching Health Economics Group.

She will speak about ‘Planning for Health’; her experiences of working with local government to undertake and implement research on the impact of planning policy on health.

Dr Jake Ainscough (LEC) works on public participation in the context of climate policy making. He leads a long-running collaboration with the UK Climate Change Committee aimed at informing their use of deliberative methods.

He will discuss the instrumental and normative rationales for involving people in policy formation and reflect on the challenges of balancing the expectations of policymakers, participants and publics when using participatory methods.

Amreen Qureshi is a Research Fellow for Migration, Trade and Communities for IPPR – Institute for Public Policy Research, and a PPR Alumna.

She will speak about ‘what works’ and what doesn’t, from her point of view as a non-state actor involved in policymaking, and the different channels of influence/blockages to influencing policy when not within the state apparatus.

Daniel Snape is a lead policy advisor at the Bank of England, and a PPR Alumnus. He advises on the democratic governance of the bank’s newly reformed microprudential regulator, including its relationships with the other branches of the British state. Until recently, Daniel also coordinated a programme to make British equivalents of European financial regulations. Daniel’s work has taken him to courts, bunkers, hospitals, embassies, universities, and parliaments, giving him a special interest in the varied standards of the UK’s policy profession.

He will talk about the growing statutory demands, as they partly determine the types of individual policies that get implemented, but they also bring into question the architecture of public decision-making.