Forthcoming Routledge Textbook · Available in late 2026
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Communicating Science for Policy: A Guide for Engaging Decision-Makers
Open Access · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
By K. L. Akerlof, Chris Tyler, Henriette Canino, Alessandro Allegra, and Wee Hoe Tan, with Erin Heath, Leonor Sierra, Tepring Piquado, Carla-Leanne Washbourne, Alma Cristal Hernández-Mondragón, Chris Marchesano, Jacob Metz-Lerman, Soledad Quiroz-Valenzuela, Tomáš Michalek, Shaheen Motala-Timol, Ronald Munatsi, Kristiann Allen, and Rodrigo Andrés Saavedra Bórquez
Introduction
This introduction sets out the purpose, audience, and structure of a textbook on science communication for policy. It explains how research evidence travels from academic settings into government, where it is weighed, debated, and used in decision-making. Written for researchers across qualitative and quantitative traditions who want their work to inform public policy, the book combines key ideas from theory and practice to help readers design a communication strategy tailored to their own policy interests. The introduction previews the volume’s three sections: Section I examines the policy process and the roles researchers can play within it; Section II addresses communication strategy and tactics, including how to present complex and uncertain evidence; and Section III considers how institutions—legislatures, executives, advisory bodies, and publics—shape engagement. It establishes the book’s central aim: equipping researchers to turn knowledge into action and meaningfully contribute to policy.
1. Starting on the Pathway to Policy Engagement
K. L. Akerlof, Chris Tyler, Henriette Canino, Alessandro Allegra, Wee Hoe Tan, Erin Heath, Tepring Piquado, Leonor Sierra, Alma Cristal Hernández-Mondragón, Soledad Quiroz-Valenzuela, Carla-Leanne Washbourne, Tomáš Michalek, Chris Marchesano, Jacob Metz-Lerman, Shaheen Motala-Timol, Kristiann Allen, Ronald Munatsi, and Rodrigo Andrés Saavedra Bórquez
This chapter introduces science communication for policy as a field and orients researchers beginning to engage with decision-makers. It defines the practice and surveys the many ways researchers can contribute to policy, tracing how the relationship between science and society has evolved since World War II—from a largely curiosity-driven, publish-in-journals model toward more deliberate engagement with public problems. It explains how science communication for policy emerged as a distinct field and how it differs from related activities, and it distinguishes two important contexts: science advice and science diplomacy. The chapter introduces the strategic vocabulary used throughout the book, separating goals, objectives, and tactics for communicating with policymakers. It also establishes an ethical foundation, arguing that while researchers can inform decisions with evidence, choices about values ultimately rest with the public and elected decision-makers. Together these ideas frame the strategic, audience-centered approach developed in later chapters.
SECTION I — UNDERSTANDING POLICY AND YOUR ROLE IN IT
2. Defining the Policy Problem and Who Is Involved
K. L. Akerlof, Henriette Canino, and Alessandro Allegra
This chapter examines how policy problems are defined and who shapes them—an essential first step for researchers deciding where their evidence can be useful. It explains that adverse conditions become policy problems only when people believe public action is warranted, and that what counts as a problem often depends on values rather than facts alone. The chapter distinguishes a policy problem from a policy issue, which arises when actors strongly disagree over a problem’s nature or solution, and it shows why researchers and decision-makers may frame the same situation differently. Readers learn to assess whether a problem is structured or unstructured and what that means for the appropriate level of public involvement. The chapter also maps the key actors—across government, industry, academia, and civil society—who contribute to defining problems and shaping debate. Understanding these dynamics helps researchers choose which problems to address and anticipate how their evidence will be received.
3. Aligning Your Communication Strategy with the Policy Process
Henriette Canino, K. L. Akerlof, and Alessandro Allegra
This chapter shows researchers how to build an evidence-based communication strategy grounded in an understanding of the policy process. It explains the different ways policymakers use research evidence and introduces frameworks that describe how policy is made. Using a set of diagnostic questions about the decision-maker and the issue, the chapter helps researchers determine how a given audience is likely to use evidence, whether they already have access to information, and how much political attention the issue currently commands. It explains how to assess the stage of a policy issue and how that stage shapes what kind of communication will be most useful. By matching their approach to the policymaker’s needs and the issue’s momentum, researchers can target their efforts where they are most likely to have influence. The chapter provides the strategic foundation for the tactics and roles developed in the chapters that follow.
4. Selecting Your Role for Engaging in Public Policy
K. L. Akerlof, Alma Cristal Hernández-Mondragón, Soledad Quiroz-Valenzuela, and Tomáš Michalek
This chapter helps researchers decide which role to play when engaging in public policy. Building on earlier chapters about defining problems and mapping the policy process, it presents a framework describing the range of roles researchers can adopt and the communicative modes associated with each—from conducting research at arm’s length to actively advocating for particular outcomes. The chapter highlights a central trade-off: roles that allow greater freedom to communicate can reduce a researcher’s perceived epistemic authority, while more restrained roles preserve credibility but limit direct influence. It also stresses how institutional context and individual circumstances shape which roles are available and appropriate. Readers learn to weigh these considerations and to choose a single role, or a mix of roles, suited to a particular decision-maker and situation. By clarifying these choices, the chapter helps researchers engage deliberately rather than by default, aligning their stance with their goals, values, and professional setting.
5. Navigating Ethical and Legal Responsibilities in Policy Engagement
Henriette Canino, Chris Marchesano, Jacob Metz-Lerman, and Alma Cristal Hernández-Mondragón
This chapter examines the ethical and legal responsibilities researchers take on when they communicate science for policy. It explains how, in democratic systems, researchers are accountable in different directions at once—to policymakers, to the public, and to their own academic field—and how these obligations can pull against one another. The chapter introduces reflexive practice as a tool for examining how one’s background, assumptions, values, and interests shape communication choices. It reviews ethical guidelines relevant to policy engagement and explains how lobbying and influence rules govern interactions with policymakers. It also surveys the main legal concerns researchers may face, emphasizing that rule-of-law protections vary widely across countries and have been weakening in some, so that risks depend heavily on place and political context. Completing the book’s first section, the chapter draws together earlier ideas to help researchers engage responsibly, lawfully, and with awareness of their own positionality.
SECTION II — COMMUNICATING RESEARCH EVIDENCE: THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM
6. Communicating Evidence for Policy
K. L. Akerlof and Leonor Sierra
This chapter presents tactics and best practices for communicating research evidence to policymakers. It begins by reframing research as an ongoing social process of inquiry rather than a fixed set of facts, and argues that faithful communication must convey not only findings but their quality and limits. The chapter explains how to assess the quality of different types of evidence and introduces evidence synthesis as a way of deciding what to include and emphasize. A central focus is uncertainty: the chapter distinguishes different types of uncertainty, shows how to communicate uncertainty and risk transparently, and explains how to align uncertainty information with the decision context so that it informs rather than paralyzes. Finally, it offers practical guidance for making complex evidence accessible to non-specialist audiences. Opening the book’s second section on communication strategy and tactics, the chapter equips researchers to represent their work honestly while keeping it usable for the people who must act on it.
7. Helping Decision-Makers Make Sense of Evidence
K. L. Akerlof, Leonor Sierra, and Henriette Canino
This chapter explores how decision-makers interpret evidence and how researchers can communicate in ways that match the realities of policymaking. It describes the policy environment as one of information overload, where evidence must compete for limited attention and where policymaking can be understood partly as an information-processing problem. Taking an audience-centered approach, the chapter explains how informational cues signal the credibility and legitimacy of evidence, and how mental models and cognitive heuristics shape the way people make sense of new information. It then introduces communication tactics—including transformative explanations—that help decision-makers overcome misleading heuristics and inaccurate mental models. By understanding the cognitive and attentional constraints under which decision-makers operate, researchers can present evidence so that it is noticed, trusted, and correctly understood. The chapter complements the preceding one on communicating evidence by shifting the focus from how findings are conveyed to how they are received and processed.
8. Building Relationships and Policy Networks through Informal Communication
K. L. Akerlof, Alma Cristal Hernández-Mondragón, Wee Hoe Tan, Tepring Piquado, and Tomáš Michalek
This chapter turns to the informal, often invisible communication that surrounds formal policy processes and to the relationships and trust it builds. It argues that the exchanges occurring before and between hearings, reports, and briefings are frequently where influence takes shape, and that lasting engagement depends on trust. The chapter introduces three dimensions of trustworthiness—ability, benevolence, and integrity—and offers seven practical tactics for talking with decision-makers in ways that build rapport and grow networks, such as finding common ground, making small talk, and building relationships over time. It examines the everyday features of talk—word choice, tone, body language, forms of address, and turn-taking—that signal trustworthiness, and it compares communication channels, from email and phone calls to social media and in-person meetings, for connecting with decision-makers. Finally, it presents strategies for sustaining relationships and building durable policy networks. The chapter shows how informal communication underpins the more formal engagement addressed elsewhere in the book.
9. Choosing, Developing, and Delivering Formal Policy Communication
Tepring Piquado, Alessandro Allegra, Alma Cristal Hernández-Mondragón, Shaheen Motala-Timol, Tomáš Michalek, and K. L. Akerlof
This chapter is a practical guide to formal policy communication—the structured documents and presentations, or genres, that feed directly into decision-making. It begins from the premise that traditional academic communication rarely fits policy needs and that evidence does not speak for itself. The chapter identifies common genres of formal policy communication, such as policy memos and one-pagers, and describes their distinguishing features. It shows how to select the most appropriate format for a given context, timing, and audience, and how to tailor products to the needs, expectations, and constraints of specific policymakers. Emphasizing that effective communication depends on more than the document itself—timing, institutional norms, and cultural expectations all matter—the chapter encourages an iterative approach in which materials are refined through feedback to strengthen future engagement. Readers also receive concrete guidance on drafting and structuring formal products following genre-appropriate conventions. The chapter translates the book’s strategic principles into the everyday formats of policy work.
SECTION III — MAPPING THE RESEARCH-POLICY ECOSYSTEM: ACTORS, INSTITUTIONS, AND PATHWAYS TO ENGAGEMENT
10. Working with Legislatures, Executives, and Judiciary Across All Levels of Governance
Chris Tyler, Alessandro Allegra, Ronald Munatsi, Chris Marchesano, Soledad Quiroz-Valenzuela, Henriette Canino, Alma Cristal Hernández-Mondragón, Rodrigo Andrés Saavedra Bórquez, Kristiann Allen, Carla-Leanne Washbourne, and K. L. Akerlof
This chapter examines how researchers can engage the three branches of government—legislative, executive, and judicial—across national, regional, local, and Indigenous levels of governance. It describes how authority is divided among the branches and explains how each reviews and uses research evidence, including what each treats as credible and useful. The chapter identifies the main routes for engaging each branch, such as committee processes, advisory mechanisms, expert testimony, and amicus briefs, and compares the branches in terms of scrutiny, transparency, evidence standards, and communication norms. It shows how researchers should tailor their communication to the distinct expectations of each branch and level of government. The chapter also explains how engaging with subnational and Indigenous governments differs from engagement at the national level, highlighting the importance of context and jurisdiction. Opening the book’s third section on institutions and publics, it gives researchers a map of governmental decision-making venues and the practical means to reach them.
11. Working with Advisory Bodies and Supporting Organizations to Engage with Policymakers
Alessandro Allegra, Erin Heath, Alma Cristal Hernández-Mondragón, Kristiann Allen, and Soledad Quiroz-Valenzuela
This chapter examines the organizations that mediate between researchers and policymakers, showing that researchers rarely engage decision-makers alone. It distinguishes advisory bodies—such as advisory councils, committees, and science offices that provide expert advice through formal channels—from the broader range of supporting organizations that strengthen research-policy ties through profile-raising, networking, and skill-building. The chapter describes the main types and features of advisory bodies and explains how institutional contexts shape their effectiveness. It offers practical guidance on engaging policymakers through these bodies and on using supporting organizations to build networks and develop communication skills. Recognizing that research-policy systems differ around the world, the chapter gives particular attention to the factors that influence advisory bodies in less-consolidated, emerging ecosystems. By understanding how these intermediary organizations work, researchers can find effective entry points into the policy process and contribute to a stronger research-policy ecosystem. The chapter complements the preceding discussion of government branches by focusing on the institutions that connect evidence to decision-making.
12. Engaging Publics and Communities in Research and Policy Processes
Carla-Leanne Washbourne, Leonor Sierra, Soledad Quiroz-Valenzuela, Shaheen Motala-Timol, Tomáš Michalek, and K. L. Akerlof
This chapter surveys participatory approaches that involve publics and communities in producing, sharing, and applying research to inform decisions. It situates these practices within the broader participatory turn in democratic governance and explains what publics and communities are, how they differ, and the roles they play in policy worldwide. The chapter makes the case that inclusive practices can broaden the knowledge available for decision-making and strengthen democratic representation, while acknowledging that public engagement also raises real challenges and is not always the right approach. It helps researchers match the level of participation and influence to the nature of the problem, the resources available, and what can credibly be promised, and it offers guidance on designing engagement—from participant selection and communication to questions of power, authority, and reporting back on how input was used. Throughout, the chapter emphasizes ethical, equitable, and rights-based principles, including Indigenous data sovereignty, for working responsibly with publics and communities.