This post is written by Lene Topp, Policy Analyst, Joint Research Centre, European Commission, and Florian Schwendinger, former Policy Analyst, Joint Research Centre, European Commission.

  • The problem: Policymakers at international, national and sub-national levels are facing more complex and interconnected policy problems, such as global pandemics, climate change and geopolitical volatility; and science is often disputed.
  • Why it matters: Policymakers and researchers working on public policy urgently need to increase their capacities for effective policymaking to rise to the new challenges.
  • The solution: Use competence frameworks to identify the (missing) cross-disciplinary and cross-policy skills, knowledge and attitudes that empower policymakers and researchers to better address today’s and future challenges.

Policymaking has been changing with unprecedented speed in recent years, characterised by rapid technological development, climate change, geopolitical crises, and important changes in society and in citizens' expectations. The public sector, and policymaking institutions like the European Commission in particular, need to continuously seek and deploy new and innovative approaches to policymaking.

In this context, evidence users (e.g. policymakers) and providers (e.g. researchers) are faced with an urgent need to increase their capacities to rise to the global challenges, to deliver innovative and future-proof policy solutions, and not least to reinforce trust in both democracy and science. So more than just new topic-specific competences (e.g. AI and data science), policymakers and researchers need complementary skills, knowledge, and attitudes to build and strengthen the bridge between science and policy.

To design effective and broadly accepted policies in response to complex issues like the green and digital transitions, policymaking teams must have cross-policy competences making them able to anticipate, understand, and tackle policy challenges in a holistic way.

We, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, have in close collaboration with many other Commission services mapped and unpacked these competences in two frameworks for ‘Innovative Policymaking’ (targeting policymakers) and ‘Science for Policy’ (targeting researchers). Organised in clusters, they describe each competence by attitudes, skills, knowledge, and outline how each competence manifests across four levels of progression: Foundational, Intermediate, Advanced, and Expert. These frameworks serve as point of reference and guidance for both learners (policymakers and researchers) and learning and development (L&D) professionals, e.g. to identify competence gaps, map existing or developing new learning offers.

What does the future hold for the policy profession?

The framework for ‘Innovative Policymaking’ sets out a future oriented, aspirational perspective for innovative policymaking. It builds on the argument that to design effective and broadly accepted policies in response to complex issues like the green and digital transitions, policymaking teams must have cross-policy competences making them able to anticipate, understand, and tackle policy challenges in a holistic way that addresses their interconnectedness, citizens’ values, and political dynamics. Citizens and stakeholders need to be engaged from the start ensuring not just legitimacy but also that policies address the real needs of citizens. This requires policymaking teams to not only build capacity in succinct writing and public speaking, but also to develop narratives and know how to handle mis- and disinformation.

Policymakers need to be skilled in advising the political level based on best available evidence and addressing the political dimension of their work, e.g. to effectively advise politicians, draft briefings and speeches, or negotiate beyond but also within their institution. Being able to collaborate, ensuring diversity of perspective, critical thinking, cultivating creativity and trust are all key competences to leverage collective intelligence. Achieving the desired impact, however, requires policymakers to not just excel in conceptual work, but also to take action by managing transformation processes and delivering results.

Innovative policymaking is a team sport; therefore, the competences should be assessed against a teams’ collective set of competences.

The ‘Innovative Policymaking’ competence framework consists of a total of 36 competences divided into 7 clusters of competences to address these aspects: Advise the political level, Innovate, Work with evidence, Be futures literate, Engage with citizens and stakeholders, Collaborate, and Communicate, all enabling innovative policymaking.

The framework describes the level of competence expected and desired from a generalist policymaker’s perspective and not from a specialists’ role, e.g. a data analyst, a citizen engagement or foresight expert. The seven clusters constitute a collective set of competences that are relevant for policymaking and the different roles within the profession. Innovative policymaking is a team sport; therefore, the competences should be assessed against a teams’ collective set of competences.

unnamed (3)

Distinct ‘Science for Policy’ competences essential for researchers

Achieving policy impact requires a distinct set of ‘Science for Policy’ competences, which are rarely covered by scientists' formal university education and doctoral programmes. These ‘Science for Policy’ competences are essential to increase the impact of scientific knowledge for better policies.

Possessing these ‘Science for Policy’ competences empowers researchers/research organisations to ensure that the best available evidence is provided and understood in good time for them to be relevant to policymakers. This requires the development of strong research synthesis skills to distil the best available evidence down to a few pertinent facts and models. It requires community management competences to effectively harness the "wisdom of crowds" to identify the salient and reliable information and draw relevant expertise from different disciplines. Stronger systems-thinking competences and the ability to integrate different disciplines are also essential. Likewise, stronger citizen engagement and communication competences, notably making use of framing, visualisation, narratives and deliberative instruments are important. Finally, better political intelligence and listening competences are vital, so that researchers can identify when exactly to present the key facts but also "make sense" of the science, as the meaning and policy consequences will come equally from the political debate as from the science.

The ‘Science for Policy’ competence framework consists of 27 competences divided into 5 clusters: Understanding policy, Participating in policymaking, Communication, Engage with citizens and stakeholders, and Collaborate. Primary research competences (e.g. research methods, academic writing) and subject matter expertise (e.g. nuclear safety or fiscal policy modelling) are beyond the scope of this framework. The competence framework is based on the assumption that the organisation already possesses these.

unnamed (4)

Apply the competence frameworks in your context

While the two competence frameworks have been developed by and are applied in the European Commission, they are by design also meant to be useful beyond this context. Both competence frameworks are publicly available to be tested and applied. Analogue to the underlying professions, they are set up to evolve with time and can be customised to different contexts. We are convinced that progress in policymaking and science for policy, requires organisations to apply systematic and innovative approaches to capacity building, including more experiential learning. Equally policymaking and research teams need to assess their collective set of competences and invest in cultivating their skills, knowledge, and attitudes. The European Commission is currently developing such a self-assessment tool and is planning to make it available free of charge to all researchers and policymakers inside and outside the European Commission by mid-2023.

More information on our project website and in this SAPEA podcast episode

👋 You can create a post like this one! Share your thoughts with a community of public servants. Learn more

(Image Credit: Unsplash)