University of Oxford Appoints New Academic Champion for Policy Engagement

In this role, Jacqui Broadhead will focus on strengthening the University’s support for more effective engagement between researchers and policy professionals. She will chair the Oxford Policy Engagement Network (OPEN) Steering Group, working with Divisional representatives and others to identify opportunities and barriers, including those faced by researchers at different career stages, and to refine the OPEN Strategy accordingly.

Patrick Grant, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, said: ‘I am delighted that Jacqui Broadhead is taking on this role. She brings to it an invaluable combination of experience of policy engagement in local, national, and international contexts – with government, Parliament, and civil society. Jacqui has previously served in local government and is currently serving alongside refugees and former asylum seekers, community leaders and policy professionals on the Commission of the Integration of Refugees, and as a trustee of the Justice Together Initiative. Here at Oxford, she leads the Global Exchange on Migration and Diversity and co-directs the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society of which the Global Exchange is part. I’m also grateful to Professor Christl Donnelly, who has served as our inaugural academic champion for the last two years.’

Jacqui Broadhead said: ‘Christl has played a key role in nurturing OPEN, which has grown to include over 1,000 researchers and professional services staff in more than 50 departments and faculties across Oxford. I am thrilled to now have the opportunity to serve in this role, and to learn more from colleagues in different disciplines who are working with policy professionals on a wide range of policy challenges – here in Oxford, elsewhere in the UK, and around the world. These include OPEN Fellows, and holders of awards from the OPEN Seed Fund and the Public Policy Challenge Fund.

‘I’m keen that OPEN’s strategy itself should be informed by the best available evidence. We are therefore inviting researchers and professional services staff, as well as policy professionals, to share their views with us.’