Government and academia: Introduction

To meet the challenges that modern government faces, policy makers need high-quality evidence on what works and detailed specialist knowledge across a range of fields, from the natural sciences to the arts and humanities. No government can expect to be able to generate all the expertise it needs on its own. So openness to external input is crucial for good policy making. ¹⁰ 1 See Dzimwasha V, Davison N and Hodgkin R, Rapid Policy Making: How civil servants can make effective policies under pressure, Institute for Government, 2025, retrieved 26 February 2026, www.instituteforgovernment.org. uk/publication/rapid-policy-making; Hallsworth M and Rutter J, Making Policy Better: Improving Whitehall’s core business, Institute for Government, 2011, retrieved 26 February 2026, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/ publication/making-policy-better; Sasse T and Thomas A, Better Policy Making, Institute for Government, 2022, retrieved 26 February 2026, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/better-policy-making

One key source of external expertise, insight and evidence for policy makers is academia. The UK higher education sector is world leading. UK universities are consistently ranked highly in international rankings, and UK-based researchers have produced path-breaking insights across a variety of disciplines. Successfully tapping into this rich source of expertise would mean better-informed government that delivers more effectively for citizens.

Since the Institute for Government’s previous research into how government and academia can work better together, ¹¹ Sasse T and Haddon C, How Government Can Work with Academia, Institute for Government, 2018, retrieved 26 February 2026, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/how-government-can-work-academia; Sasse T and Haddon C, How Academia Can Work with Government, Institute for Government, 2019, retrieved 26 February 2026, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/how-academia-can-work-government  there has been more activity on both sides. The Covid pandemic brought the importance of high-quality science and expert advice to the fore and led to a more robust institutional architecture for researcher engagement. This was built chiefly around the Government Office for Science (GO-Science) and the network of chief scientific advisers. Growing numbers of researchers have also become interested in engaging with policy makers, supported by increasingly active and better-resourced university policy engagement functions.

But more activity does not necessarily mean more effective knowledge exchange across the policy–research divide. Building on previous research, as well as more than a decade of Institute for Government work supporting academics in engaging with government, ¹² 3 Institute for Government, ‘Support for academic researchers’, Institute for Government, (no date) retrieved 16 June 2026, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/ifg-academy/engaging-government/support-academic-researchers  this report looks at how the policy–research interface has changed in Whitehall in recent years and what government can do to ensure that policy making is made better by access to the best evidence and expertise available as and when it needs it.

Our findings, based on desk research and interviews with more than 30 former and current senior officials, academics and knowledge mobilisers, suggest that the proliferation of initiatives coming from academia, which government has not always been able to capitalise on, has sometimes led to ineffective use of resources as well as duplication and confusion among officials. The ad-hoc nature of some government schemes has meant that opportunities for co-ordination, join-up, evaluation and lesson learning have been missed across the civil service that join up different mechanisms and build on best practice from across the system. This would mark a shift from what is still, in parts of the civil service, an ecosystem dominated by disjointed initiatives that do not serve officials’ evidence needs as effectively as they could.

The system is already filled with examples of successful programmes that have brought officials and researchers closer and generated more robust decision making. The civil service should capitalise on cross-government structures, from GO-Science to the Evaluation Task Force, to share best practice and support continued innovation and iteration in how government engages with academia.

Because we recognise that departments are different, we do not advocate a one-size-fits-all approach for allocating responsibility for researcher engagement. But a more strategic approach to bringing academic expertise into policy making will require more clearly delineated lines of accountability among senior civil service leaders at the departmental level. Strong, visible leadership within departments is needed to ensure that strengthening the links between policy and research remains a priority.

Finally, a civil service that seeks to engage with academics more effectively also needs to change its internal culture as well as incentives for those in the system. More openness towards external challenge and transparency around data and evidence use where appropriate could help create the conditions for better policy making.

This report explores the genuine progress that has already happened in improving the policy–research interface. It also highlights how this progress has sometimes been uneven, and how it can be expanded to encompass greater swathes of UK central government. Our collection of explanatory deep dives, published alongside this report, looks in greater detail at five specific researcher engagement mechanisms:

• advisory groups 
• areas of research interest 
• expert networks 
• secondments 
• What Works Centres.

Together, they offer an account of what has changed in the relationship between government and academia, as well as what needs to change to make that relationship more systematised and effective.