Research to Policy Engagement Initiative
The Research to Policy Engagement Initiative aims to bridge knowledge to action on major societal challenges and connect policymakers, stakeholders, and researchers from diverse disciplines.
The initiative has two complementary goals:
- to help bring scientific and technical knowledge to bear to inform solutions to complex policy problems, bridging the design and conduct of research at MIT with communities of practice
- to create an intellectual community of researchers who can learn, apply, and contribute to developing best practices in bridging knowledge to action on societal challenges, across experiences in different research domains
The initiative supports the work of students and postdocs working at the intersection of technology and policy through fellowships and research assistantships. You can support this initiative by giving to TPP.
For more info on the initiative, contact Noelle Selin.
2021-2022: Policy for Whom?
When discussing how research can inform policy, a frequent step is to identify the appropriate stakeholders. But “stakeholder engagement” can take many forms — with key implications for equity and fairness. Some topics have well-defined communities at stake, while others may be more challenging to pinpoint. How might researchers clarify their scope and plan their engagement in these different cases? How have our speakers done this in their work? And what lessons can we apply to our own fields of interest? We aim to explore these questions and more with a variety of guests — from researchers to the stakeholders themselves who have played a role in their process.
Initiative Participants
Faculty
Noelle Selin
Interim Director, IDSS
Professor, IDSS and EAPS
Jessika Trancik
Atlantic Richfield CD Assoc Prof of Energy Studies, IDSS
Danielle Wood (TPP ’08)
Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences & AeroAstro
Students and Postdocs
Poushali Maji
Postdoctoral Associate, IDSS
Katlyn Turner
Research Scientist, Media Lab
Micah Ziegler
Postdoctoral Associate, IDSS
