VET research engagement with policymakers

• In Event: Still searching for a theory: the interface between VET research and VET interventions by donors and governments in LMICs

Proposal

This paper takes a different format to the academic convention, taking seriously the need to engage with policy makers in the global South, and taking seriously the policy-research interface. We propose a structured engagement between the academic researchers and policy makers from two global South countries, as well as from the international trade union movement. The paper takes the form of a set of questions posed to two senior policy makers in South African and Chile respectively, and the research officer of Education International. These are three individuals who are influential in different types of policy making, and have played different kinds of roles in engaging with policy. We ask them for professional reflection on the ways in which they are able to engage with theoretical debates and consider the role of evidence and theory in informing policy. Drawing on key issues highlighted from the first two papers, the two policy makers will reflect on:
• Their personal experiences of working with researchers and academic research findings in government work and policy work.
• Reflections on relationships with global actors versus national academic researchers.
• What framing strategies of policy problems and solutions are the most effective to engage global and local stakeholders with critical VET research evidence?
• What models of collaboration/co-production better facilitate the adoption and scaling-up of policy innovations that are relevant and owned by local communities and end-beneficiaries?
• What enables these collaborative models to contribute to growing policy makers understanding of the problem and therefore, flowing from this, possible solutions?

Author

• Cristian Martín Lincovil Belmar, Ministry of Education, Chile