In Conversation: All Systems Go!

In May 2025, Beth Hogben, Head of the Mid-Career Scientists Programme at the Government Office for Science (GOS), joined the OPEN Steering Group. In late 2025, Beth sat down with Jacqui Broadhead, who chairs the Steering Group, for a wide-ranging conversation about the year in review, as well as the skills, systems and relationships that underpin OPEN’s mission.  

Shared motivations

Jacqui began by reflecting on how her research on migration and integration had long involved working with policy professionals. A longstanding member of OPEN, she had jumped at the chance to serve as the University’s academic champion for policy engagement. The role, she explained, had forced her to think more about systems: how can the University better support engagement by research professionals and students in different disciplines, and at different career stages? She had also wanted ‘more voices of policy professionals’ involved in shaping OPEN’s future, so she had been delighted that Beth had agreed to get involved.

Beth recalled that she had spent much of her career at the science-policy interface, becoming increasingly preoccupied by the question of how government used evidence, ‘particularly science, because that's my background, but also evidence more broadly’ to make decisions. ‘I’m very supportive of the work you’re doing,’ she said, pointing to OPEN initiatives such as its unique peer mentoring scheme, which matches policy professionals in and outside the Civil Service with research professionals across the University.

Delivering on strategic commitments

Asked about highlights from the past year, Jacqui pointed to the refresh of the OPEN Strategy and its emphasis on complementarity and catalysing connectivity. ‘Lots of researchers are out there doing policy engagement a lot of the time,’ she said. OPEN’s role was to support them, as needed, she added, and make engagement easier – for example, by ‘providing opportunities for hands-on experience, particularly at earlier stages in their careers, and for those who don't already have connections’.  

Jacqui also highlighted a specific commitment in the strategy: the launch of the OPEN Visiting Fellowship. This had already sparked some surprising collaborations, she noted, such as one between ethicists at the Uehiro Oxford Institute and one of the Cabinet Office team responsible for government preparedness and crisis response, which had focused on ethical decision-making in emergencies. ‘That might not be the first connection you’d think of,’ she said, ‘but it shows how new types of engagement can emerge.’

Another milestone was the inaugural OPEN Forum – another commitment in the strategy – which had focused on three aspects of risk and resilience affecting the UK: energy and the environment; human health; and technology. Departments and units with strengths in these areas had collaborated in convening experts from academia, government, industry and funding agencies. The format, Jacqui noted, combined the University’s research excellence with strategic partnerships: ‘The thinking was: here’s where we already have real strengths, we have existing partnerships – and here are new ones we can grow. That feels really exciting.’

Strengthening skills

Beth asked about challenges that researchers faced when new to policy engagement. Jacqui noted that successful collaboration depended on mutual recognition by research and policy professionals of each other’s expertise. The most productive interactions were co-productive, she said, not just a one-way transmission of answers from academia to government or parliament. Developing the capacity for co-production and a longer-term conversation was itself a skill – one that required understanding each other’s constraints, too, whether political or resource-related.

Beth agreed that such skills were vital and not easily learned. Policy teams often work to much shorter timeframes than researchers. ‘The difference between going deep into a subject and the reality of working to tight policy deadlines – that can be quite stark,’ she said. This sometimes meant relying on rapid reviews of existing evidence rather than commissioning new research.  

Incentives and institutional change

Jacqui emphasised that Research England’s Policy Support Fund had been invaluable, enabling OPEN to offer, alongside bigger awards via the Public Policy Challenge Fund, smaller grants via the OPEN Seed Fund that allow researchers and policy partners to ‘dip a toe in the water’ — opportunities that are ‘low-risk, easy to apply for, and don’t take too much time.’ Yet gaps remain between these early partnerships and the resources needed to sustain them long term.

Asked whether government’s own incentives supported engagement, Beth pointed to the Civil Service Policy Profession Standards, which prized the ability to commission, understand and use data, evidence, and advice, but noted that practical barriers persisted. Almost every government department, as well as several agencies, now had a Chief Scientific Adviser. This was underpinned by a ‘renewed drive to make the Civil Service more scientific’, with senior civil servants modelling a culture of curiosity and evidence use.

She also highlighted publication of more departmental Areas of Research Interest (ARIs), as well as new initiatives by GOS, such as Routes for Academic Engagement, and directories for academia-to-policy and policy-to-academia exchange schemes. ‘I think there’s even more we can do to make routes visible and help with engagement,’ she said.  

Visibility and ‘shop windows’

Looking ahead, Jacqui noted Oxford’s breadth of research as both an advantage and a challenge when it comes to navigation. OPEN had a role to play in making it easier for policy professionals to navigate the University and connect with researchers. Welcoming the transparency of the government’s ARIs, she echoed the Vice-Chancellor, who had called for a better coordinated ‘shop window’ for policy engagement at Oxford. Beth liked the metaphor. Government, too, she said, needed clearer ‘shop windows’ for its evidence needs – and, crucially, ‘people crossing the street’ in both directions. ‘It’s about the porosity of government to evidence,’ she said, ensuring ideas and expertise flow freely.

Challenging and supporting government

In closing, Jacqui spoke of a balancing act between ‘on the one hand, curiosity-driven research and researchers doing their own thing and, on the other, putting a thumb on the scale and saying that particular policy areas are strategically important for government and academia. We always want that balance,’ she concluded, ‘engaged with policy, but not led by it – so that research can challenge as well as support government.’