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The University of Liverpool’s Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice and Place launched a new series of Policy Briefs focused on regional recovery and renewal, and wants to hear your ideas for the series along four distinct themes.
As the pandemic hit in March 2020, the Heseltine Institute sprang into action, producing more than 40 Policy Briefs over the subsequent 18 months, with the aim of supporting and informing policy makers, civil servants, researchers and practitioners, as we all grappled with the impact of COVID-19.
But while the original run wide focused on the immediate impact of the pandemic, the second series of Policy Briefs is aimed squarely at supporting Liverpool City Region (LCR), and those like it, by offering specialist insight that could help shape recovery.
Heseltine Institute Co-Director, Sue Jarvis said: “As society reopens, the question of how the city region will recover from the health impacts of the pandemic, as well as its economic and social aftershocks, will dominate local and regional policy.
“Our aim is to develop and disseminate research that can help to deliver a strong recovery in Liverpool City Region, encourage debate about alternative approaches to economic development, public service delivery and innovation, and develop closer links between researchers and the policy community in the city region.”
The Heseltine Institute is looking for submissions along four distinct themes:
- Economic futures
- Inequalities
- Climate change and resilience
- Public service innovation
The aim is to publish Policy Briefs addressing critical public policy challenges around these themes, with focus on a particular policy problem, alongside identification of possible solutions.
The second series is already bearing fruit, with Briefs so far produced considering the role of the Liverpool Pandemic Institute in “predicting, preventing and protecting”; how to build “an inclusive innovation economy” for Liverpool and the latest output, entitled A Recovery for Secure Livelihoods.
Sue Jarvis said: “We work on a daily basis with policymakers, civil servants and politicians in LCR and nationally to understand the big questions facing the city region and how academic research can help answer them.
“Our Policy Briefs will be circulated to hundreds of policymakers, researchers and practitioners, and contributions to the first series have featured in submissions to parliamentary enquiries, referenced in academic journals, impact case studies and discussed at various roundtables and events.”
The Heseltine Institute team is seeking short, highly focused briefings of between 1,000 and 2,000 words, as well as longer working papers up to 7,000 words.
Submissions are reviewed by the Heseltine Institute, with the aim of working constructively with authors to maximise the policy impact of the research.
To find out more about the Heseltine Institute’s Policy Brief series, please visit https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/heseltine-institute/policybriefs/ and for more information, or to suggest a submission, please email hipolicy@liverpool.ac.uk