Our Work
Our Mission
To build collaboration between the research and policy community, by sharing evidence, nurturing skills, creating space for fresh thinking and preparing the next generation of policymakers.
What We Do
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Research: We harness expertise and evidence from across the University to evaluate policy and develop solutions.
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Connect: We provide a two-way link between the research and policy community.
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Build Bridges: We create a safe space for fresh thinking where issues divide politically or span across multiple governmental responsibilities.
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Develop Skills: We provide learning among academics to engage with policy, and with policymakers to enhance their understanding of problems, for the next generation of policymakers
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Create Solutions: We help create solutions with policymakers to wicked problems which can be complex, hard to navigate and often divisive.
Our Four Themes
Policy
From climate change to inequality, to demographic and technological change, the University of Glasgow is home to world-class research addressing many of the big policy challenges facing governments today. The Centre for Public Policy harnesses that cross-disciplinary expertise, helping to connect the policy community and public to the insights, ideas and solutions emerging from our research. The Centre is also focused on supporting the policy process, including through evaluating public policy, identifying barriers and opportunities to embedding prevention in policy making and closing the implementation gap in public policy, and fostering participative approaches to policy making.
Practice
Policy outputs are plans. Putting these plans into practice requires effective public administration, with collaboration across a wide range of public, private and third sector and community organisations, often in complex and uncertain environments. The Centre conducts research on comparative public administration and builds capacity among practitioners, offering professional education, nurturing next generation practitioners, and promoting opportunities to connect practitioners to research evidence and expertise.
Governance
Many policy challenges span the responsibilities of different government departments and of different governments. Our research examines constitutional constraints shaping the governments’ policy making capacities and the challenges and opportunities of intergovernmental relations in systems with multi-level government, including devolution. Within governments, major policy challenges increasingly demand a more strategic ‘whole of government’ approach to the design and delivery of public services and policy ambitions. Our research and engagement explores and supports strategic governance, using our Policy Lab to help break down policy silos.
People
Public policy should be inclusive and participatory, ensuring that the needs of diverse individuals and communities are met and that we mitigate against the often-unintended impacts of policy decisions. Our research contributes to maximising the inclusivity and value of innovative participative approaches to policy making. We are committed to working with both communities and political decision-makers to support their engagement with each other, creating collaborative spaces where policymakers, communities and experts can work together to shape forward-thinking policy. We attempt to identify and close the gaps that exist between human rights and the means that people have of accessing those rights by supporting engagement between people, researchers and policymakers.