Eight tactics for engineering consequential higher education policy research papers

Abstract

It is easy to construct 2019 as one of great consequence for higher education policy. Pressing uncertainties abound, about perennial issues like funding and accreditation, about emerging political agendas, and about the always promising yet expensive computerisation of learning. But deeper, more existential, concerns are stalking. Higher education is at the edge of debates about innovation, population, workforce, societal engagement and the economy. ‘Public policy’ has become ‘secret strategy’, through commercialisation, digitisation and diplomacy. Governments are calling on universities to demonstrate the public value they create and contribute. Universities are in the crosshairs of emerging geopolitical posturing. Policy and research communities have been absorbed by new routines, corporations and methodologies. Policy itself seems challenged in several places in which bedrock terms like ‘system’ and ‘institution’ are themselves being questioned. Simplistically, there are three ways to cope with such uncertainty. One approach is to hunker in offices, hold teddy bears, and nourish cosy dystopian or hobbyist conversations among old chums. A braver accommodation is to venture into unfamiliar realms, to defend good practices and hard work, educate the masses, and maybe clutch for risky or novel perspectives. The more ambitious posture, which requires acumen and courage, is to venture into imaginative dialogues which solve real-world puzzles and along the way demonstrate the tenacity and brilliance that strengthens higher education itself. Policy Reviews in Higher Education (PRiHE) was launched in 2015 to become a thinkingperson’s ‘go-to place’ for insights into important aspects of higher education. In formal terms, the journal was launched with the aim of ‘opening up a space for publishing in-depth accounts of significant areas of policy development affecting higher education internationally’. Two volumes, 4 issues and 25 articles down the track, it is becoming clearer how this important platform can play an influential role. In this editorial, I offer eight tactics for crafting consequential policy research papers for submission to PRiHE. The point is not to present any kind of exhaustive recipe or checklist, but to clarify practical guideposts which may stimulate and shape papers that make a difference. The tactics share a simple and powerful idea that policy research is about making higher education better, not bibliometric gymnastics. Sure, publishing in PRiHE will create value for your career and institution. But what really matters is writing papers which convey helpful insights and perspectives, and provide valuable evidence for/against decision-making. Please use these ideas to guide your contribution. First, pick large policy problems which your research can help clarify or advance. There is no secret ingredient, but a few questions may help stir imagination and planning. What do ‘people who matter’ talk about in the media, at conferences and in applied research? What tractable opportunities are there to collect new data to spur productive reform? What extant findings can you synthesise or translate into practice? What do people outside governments and universities complain about higher education? Can you deploy comparative or historical methodologies to port ideas proven effective elsewhere into contemporary circumstances? What irritates you in ways that excite researchable opportunities for reform? Where are there gaping gaps between policy and practice?