English councils should appoint scientific advisers to enable academics to inform local policy decisions, according to a university leader.

David Price, vice-provost (research) at UCL and principal investigator of a new ?10 million project to improve academic-policy engagement, said that there was a recognised need to ensure universities contributed to the well-being of the country as a whole, but a lack of established mechanisms for the exchange of information between scholars and policymakers at a local or regional level.

¡°One of the things we¡¯ve been talking about in London is the concept of boroughs actually having chief scientific advisers, just like we have in departments of state in Whitehall. I think certain regional authorities need them as well,¡± he said.

¡°Wherever one is making decisions at whatever level ¨C be it rural rubbish collection or healthcare delivery in a rural area?that is overseen by a county council or a local region ¨C having that scientific input to understand how the research can inform the local policy process is vital. It isn¡¯t just something that national governments need to think about.¡±

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Professor Price, who said that the appointment of scientific advisers at a regional level would potentially be ¡°a great outcome¡± of the policy project, added that he hoped it would enable local authorities to engage with different parts of the higher education sector based on different institutions¡¯ expertise, rather than just their local universities.

The new three-year Capabilities in Academic-Policy Engagement (Cape) project will be led by UCL in partnership with the universities of Cambridge, Manchester, Nottingham and Northumbria, and government and policy organisations. It aims to support academic-policy engagement at scale and throughout England, to ensure that policy issues beyond Westminster are being addressed.??

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Sarah Chaytor, UCL¡¯s director of research strategy and policy and co-lead of the project, which has received ?3.9 million from Research England, said that academic-policy engagement currently tends to be an individual and ¡°piecemeal¡± activity, in which scholars ¡°broker one engagement at a time in a particular area with a particular subset of policy stakeholders¡±. The CAPE project will help develop a?large-scale and more collaborative approach, she added.

Ms Chaytor said a key element would be to involve academics at every career level, while a new scheme will fund at least 20 academic fellowships and 15 policy fellowships for two years.

¡°It¡¯s quite a disruptive thing to say ¡®please stop your academic work and go and spend some time doing something that may not be specified in a policy organisation or a government department where there may not be a clear outcome¡¯, because actually it¡¯s all about building that relationship,¡± she said.

¡°A fair chunk of the award is going to support that disruption and make these sorts of fellowships attractive to academics and attractive at all career levels.¡±

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ellie.bothwell@timeshighereducation.com