The past few weeks of the research project have gone well. As of writing, our case studies are almost ready for typesetting into the brochure, a sample of which is featured as the cover image of this post.
In the end, we've included 22 case studies from a diverse range of academics in different fields and universities, who've each had their own unique experiences with research-policy collaboration. These have been divided and alphabetised into groups of 'National Government', 'UK Parliament and Devolved Adminstrations', 'Local Authorities' as well as 'Other Policymaking Bodies E.g. NGOs', with these four categories forming the basis for the table of contents. These have been processed by me, and a few remain to be peer-reviewed by Professor Arlene before we hand them over to our graphic designer.
We've also included an introduction, co-authored by myself and Arlene, as well as an afterword written by Laura Bea, Marina Altoe, Rebecca diCorpo, Co-Chairs of UPEN Arts and Humanities Sub-Committee. This will be very helpful to readers to set the case studies in their contexts.
One of the main challenges of the past few weeks has been ensuring that case studies are suitable for publication - some responses were too brief or needed additional details to be useful. I also came up with the idea of making sure each case study had an photograph to represent the collaboration, as well as a photo of the actual respondent, on top of the drawing illustrations. The former two, as well as additional information, was gathered by me.
Other tasks I've finished include writing the report for the Laidlaw output, and from tomorrow I'll be working on the poster. From there, all that's left to do is send off our case studies to be typeset, and have it published on the UPEN website.