Month: July 2013

Different expectations and different contexts

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Thom Oliver

At first glance the shelves in my office look pretty incongruous, dust jacketed local government case studies from the 1960s lined up alongside books on gender quotas and corporate governance codes. That’s the real challenge I think post PhD, finding your space and constructing your narrative in a congested, time pressured and often opportunistic realm.

Having left INLOGOV following my PhD (which explored the representative role of councillors operating on appointed mandates) in 2011, I now find myself on a three year post doctoral fellowship in the Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics at Oxford Brookes Business School. Like many of my peers following the PhD I fully anticipated few opportunities for much autonomy in any of my first post PhD roles, perhaps a 12 month stint on someone else’s project or a 1 year fixed term teaching contract. Therefore I consider myself very fortunate to have found a position where I can endeavour to carve out a self defined niche. But therein lays the challenge, where to concentrate focus.

The initial answer is obvious, the clear expectation post submission is to publish in quality journals, taking into account the impending REF exercise, the changing context of publishing and journal access, and addressing the developing impact agenda (as discussed last week on this blog by Katherine Tonkiss). This post however considers some of the softer expectations, opportunities and challenges of the shift from PhD to Postdoc.

New environments and new challenges

The first challenge I think comes with adapting to a new work context, beyond moving from an individual to more collaborative way of working. The movement from a research intensive institute to a department with a clear teaching focus presents a significant challenge. The expectation comes with a need not just to do the research but to increase capacity and foster an environment within the department which draws others into an active research culture. As many of my peers at other institutions will attest very few departments can claim a coherent and collaborative interplay between teaching and research.

Building collaboration and capacity

In aiming towards a form of sustainable employment within research a clear bidding strategy has to go hand in hand with a publishing strategy. The first questions arise around what to bid for, what is achievable and what would offer a clear trajectory to a more substantial bid? Also in a new environment there is a challenge to build new collaborations to form a stronger platform from which to bid. In my case I have been very fortunate, my colleague and mentor Professor Laura Spira has been a helpful and supportive collaborator enabling us to quickly pick the lower hanging fruit of institutional seed corn funding and explore the options for a seminar series bid and more substantial amounts from Leverhulme and the British Academy. Throughout we have been able to develop a fuller understanding of the theoretical stances and methodological approaches of each other’s specialisms whilst benefiting from the contrast to our own disciplinary baggage. The value derived from openness to different literatures and ways of thinking can be immense.

Catching currents and developing contexts

There is also scope to benefit from developing policy context and agendas. The recent backdrop of localism and the mayoral model has also offered opportunities for development. Living in Bristol the unfolding drama of a successful referendum followed by the surprise election of an independent mayor in George Ferguson has given opportunities for bits of media work as well the capture of some interesting attitudinal data of both voters and councillors on the implications of the mayoral model. The opportunity to build a network of non-academic contacts within a local government context has also helped to translate conceptual ideas and test the viability of more applied research locally. Maybe a case of locality and good fortune but couple that with some deskwork, legwork and networking and perhaps there are the foundations of a feasible research project. It can be a lot of work over a short period of time but being on the cusp of a developing research agenda has not only delivered timely data but also allowed me to speak to new policy debates.

Building a new support network

From sharing an office with the now Drs Ewbank, Tonkiss and Matharu during my PhD to sitting in an office of my own, there was a strong need to find people to bounce ideas off for the sake of sanity, creativity and development. Whilst I have great contacts within my department at Brookes and back to INLOGOV, I have made a conscious effort to build contacts with academics both locally in Bristol and across a number of disciplines (Law, Political Science and Public Policy). This has been an element which has proved really important in helping build both my confidence and helping me develop my network further. I am very fortunate to count a number of non-Brookes colleagues as critical friends, whether I met them at conferences, at policy events, job interviews or just through a tentative email. From these connections I may hear about conferences, funding calls, potential jobs, as well as the potential to develop collaborative research proposals. As an early career researcher there is something hugely valuable about having an experienced friend to answer career advice questions or get some comments back on a paper. Of course it works both ways, for them too there is an opportunity to bounce an idea around or sketch out a research paper. The investment of time and opportunism in making contact has been immensely rewarded and to each of these friends I am hugely grateful.

Coming out of the PhD there is a big new challenging environment, in aiming to carve out my place in this environment the challenges laid out have been diverse, to adapt to new contexts and working environments, to build collaboration and capacity, and to adapt to address fast moving research agendas. Whilst it’s clear that to progress you need first authored publications and being principal investigator on bids there are many challenges and opportunities which can help you get there. My research now sits broadly under the theme of public governance, representation and accountability, my current funded research project is exploring the how public sector non executive directors consider their role, representation and accountability. A strong conceptual and methodological thread remains from my time at INLOGOV and it’s around this thread my research is developing. My development is as much due to others as to myself. I have learned that the benefit from continuing to expand your network is crucial and makes any future achievements both more manageable and more likely.

oliver

Dr Thom Oliver is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes Business School. He completed his PhD, exploring the representative role of councillors on appointed bodies, at INLOGOV in 2011. He currently lives in Bristol and has recently rejoined INLOGOV as an Associate. Follow his Twitter account here, and read his own blog here.

HS2: the importance of evidence

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Rebecca O’Neill

Large infrastructure planning projects are often met with much controversy and debate. This is partly due to the risks involved and the conflicting views amongst actors. One such project is the proposed high-speed railway to London from Birmingham, the North of England and potentially Scotland; better known as High Speed Two (HS2). After the project received an amber-red rating in May from the Major Projects Authority (MPA) annual report there is every reason for people to be concerned. An amber-red project is defined as follows:

‘Successful delivery of the project is in doubt, with major risks or issues apparent in a number of key areas. Urgent action is needed to ensure these are addressed, and whether resolution is feasible’.

So the questions that must be asked are what evidence supports the project and how should we analyse the debate? The evidence in favour of the project is largely based on predictive models and statistical data. One would think that after the financial crisis of 2008, people would not be so quick to base decisions on rational predictive models. Or that after the cost overruns and benefit shortfalls of HS1 (the Channel Tunnel Rail Link) supporters of HS2 would be less optimistic in their forecasts. However, advocates of the project believe that the project is both viable and necessary to tackle over-capacity issues on the West Coast Main Line.

There are a number of ways of analysing the debate. One such way is through an evidence-based policy making lens. This approach argues that once a policy problem is identified then research evidence will fill the knowledge gap thus solving the problem. For advocates of evidence-based policy making, ‘the task of the researcher is to make accurate observations about objective reality, ensuring that error and bias are eliminated by isolating variables in order to be able to identify cause-effect relationships’. These experimental methods are usually in the form of statistical analysis and they rely heavily on quantitative data. So evidence must be about ‘facts’ that tend to prove or disprove a conclusion. Evidence-based policy making has underlying positivist assumptions that it is possible to have a value-free science. It assumes that there is an objective truth ‘out there’ and if researchers adopt a certain approach then they will find the answer to the wicked issues and social problems we are facing.

If we utilise the evidence-based policy making approach then I must come to these conclusions:

  • The actors within HS2 are rational actors who have systematically collected scientific, rigorous evidence to support their claims and their decisions are rational and value-free.
  • If there is a conflict of evidence then this is either because the actors have not behaved rationally, they have allowed emotions and values to shadow their decisions or the evidence has flaws in terms of quality and methodology.
  • Those opposed to the project have an argument based on ideologies and less systematic and rigorous evidence.

However, I propose (along with many others) that the policy process is messy, that actors are rarely rational, that evidence is not necessarily ‘out there’ waiting to be found and that assuming more information will provide policy makers with the solution is wrong. The policy process is better viewed as an arena in which actors present claims and attempt to persuade their audience that these claims are true through the presentation of evidence and persuasion. The claims made by actors within the process are based on a variety of different evidence ranging from personal opinion to rigorous, scientific evidence. A good claims-maker will have mastered the art of appealing to a range of audiences, shaping and presenting their evidence in a way that best suits their audience. The concept of evidence-based policy making does not acknowledge the role of humans in this sense.

In the case of HS2, claims were made about the West Coast main line (WCML) stating that it was almost at full capacity as well as claiming that the UK needed to modernise its railway infrastructure. They did not simply claim that it was the right thing to do; rather they captured existing discourses within society such as modernisation and economic growth. The claims-making framework enables us to explain why unfounded anecdotes can easily override rigorous scientific effort and investment. It also explains why some evidence is accepted over other evidence.

For a long time supporters of the project dismissed counter-claims and evidence arguing that the NIMBYs were being selfish, that the project was for the greater good and that they were preventing much needed modernisation. However, more and more people are questioning the claims being presented by HS2 Limited and their followers.  In practice, the philosophy of ‘what works’ often takes second place to, as Russell and Greenlagh describe, ‘experiential evidence, much of which was in the form of anecdotes or generalisations based on a person’s accumulated wisdom about the topic’. Claims-making theory, therefore, provides a robust theoretical framework for examining the process of how claims are made, received, denied through counter claims, and reshaped. It also illustrates how claims and those who make them interact to formulate public policy.

o'neill

Rebecca O’Neill is a doctoral student looking at the role of evidence within High Speed Two. She has an interest in the conceptualisation of evidence, evidence-based policy making, the claims-making framework and interpretive approaches to research.

Leaping from campus to council

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Mark Ewbank

It was not too long ago that I sat for my doctoral viva at INLOGOV. Rather than being a harrowing experience, it actually turned out to be a very enjoyable one – with a chance to forensically dissect my research into local government ‘overview and scrutiny’ in minute detail and relate and explain the research project’s aims, outcomes and evaluations. Immediately afterwards I took a Research Fellowship at the University of Southampton looking at select committee evidence utilisation in the House of Commons, along the same theme of my doctoral work.

However, soon after the end of my research and work at Southampton I made the leap to local government. Whilst at INLOGOV and previous employment at the (excellent) Centre for Public Scrutiny I had had daily contact with councillors from all over the country, I had never truly experienced life on the frontline. Now, a few years into my post in local government, I can reflect, from an officer perspective, that the day-to-day life of a councillor is far more complex than anything I had ever envisaged within my research scope first laid down in 2007. However, whilst my experience hasn’t invalidated any of my research outcomes or conclusions, it has opened up a whole raft of possible further research questions that I remain keen to evaluate in the future.

For me, quite unexpectedly due to pre-conceptions, my time in academia has been well-utilised by local government, whether undertaking research myself, working with academics or commissioning. At a high-profile council I now lead a small team of officers in the ‘overview and scrutiny’ function, where having balanced, fair analysis and evaluation is critical. With the academic background in a long-term research project such as the doctoral thesis, ‘task-and-finish’ groups almost take on a similar feel – with total immersion and rigorous research plans and reports.

With an inbox that fills up each time I leave my desk, there are times when I miss the protective cloister of an office and a project that occupies myself alone, but the sheer number of experiences and daily challenges that come with being an officer in such a unique council outweigh the negatives at this point. At a fundamental level – I duly confess that I do enjoy working with Elected Members and have found that in whatever capacity I have worked with them, whether in a central (CfPS), academic (INLOGOV) or frontline (Council) capacity, facilitating the democratic wheels has always been my passion. At my own Council, such Member passion and enthusiasm, on both sides, for improving lives keeps and drives my enthusiasm for the role. Having such a direct and measurable impact, as Scrutiny practitioners tend to have, has ensured that I have yet to come to regret my leap.

ewbank

Mark Ewbank is currently the service lead for Overview & Scrutiny in the City of Westminster. He graduated from his PhD studies at INLOGOV in 2011, with a thesis focused on party group organisation and behaviour within and outside legislatures, especially in relation to the roles of political actors as part of groups/select or scrutiny committees. Mark also taught classical political theory at an undergraduate and postgraduate level at the University of Birmingham.

Why you should be academic blogging as a PhD student

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Pete Redford

A few weeks ago I gave a presentation at a workshop for doctoral researchers and academics on using academic blogging to create impact and disseminate your research. I had started academic blogging before becoming a PhD student and in my experience had found it a very useful tool. I had been struggling to find funding and was given the opportunity to write for the LSE’s Politics and Policy Blog.  It provided me with a more informal and very easy way to publish new content, helping to build my profile.

With more ways than ever share our thoughts and the emergence of websites such as The Conversation in the UK I would like to briefly share my experiences of blogging and why I believe as PhD students we should be blogging more.

Why blog and what should you write about?

Blogging allows for shorter articles, good for external audiences, making them less time consuming as traditional output methods. Do you ever find yourself angry at a news story? Then share your thoughts, you won’t be the only be only person thinking it. Your post will be easy to share via social media making it easily searchable, if you write it people will find it. It doesn’t just have to be current events you write about, you can share your conference papers and updates on research progress providing a valuable opportunity for feedback from others in our field.

Blogging also gives you a freedom in your writing that I enjoy, allowing for a whole person style where content may be personal as well as academic. Dissemination is immediate, and so too is comment and feedback. This can be a valuable tool when sharing your research and conference papers, giving feedback that can improve your analysis of a particular topic. They can also be a valuable job finding tool as employers can see more than just your CV.

Blogs vs journal articles

Blogs will never be a replacement for journal articles but they certainly have a few advantages over them. Shorter and open access, they have a potential audience far greater than journals – fulfilling an obligation I believe we have to the general public to share our research in a clear and approachable manner. In contrast to journal articles they can be colourful, with hyperlinks to relevant material, as well as contain audio and video. You can also link them to academic papers you have written, therefore increasing the audience of your work. The World Bank has done research into why economists are blogging more and how this has impressively increased the readership of their Journal articles.

Dissemination & visibility

The more you write, your audience will increase and so too will your visibility. Blog posts feature highly on google scholar, especially those from multi-author blogs. It’s always an ego boost to search for a topic and find you work ranked higher than that of your supervisors. The online nature of your posts also make it easier to see who is citing or reading your work, a quick search for my own work found mentions in Germany and Australia. Blogs are also increasingly used by journalists and can result in requests for interviews and articles, giving further visibility to your work. During recent unrest in the Tory party, journalists found some of my posts for the LSE resulting in requests for interviews and a piece in the Evening Standard.

So why blog? In the era of social media the question is, why not? It’s easy, gives you greater freedom, and provides a valuable output that can aid your research, improve your visibility, and help you find a job.

redford

Pete Redford is a former Parliamentary researcher currently undertaking his PhD researching the ‘underclass’ at the University of Birmingham. He holds a BA (Hons) British Politics and Legislative Studies and MA Global Political Economy from the University of Hull. He tweets @PeteRedford.

Re-establishing the relationship between citizens and politicians in Greece

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George Despotidis

The word Greece nowadays is connected to the word debt, and it’s true – Greece owes a lot of money to a lot of people, banks and countries.

Until recently, public employees in Greece were not actually evaluated and could not be fired. It was a job for life and their salary would never decrease – only increase – as the years went by. And so this meant that everyone wanted to become a public employee.

Parties governing Greece from 1974 onwards, the year when democracy was restored and the constitution of Greece changed to a parliamentary democracy, knew this. They were the ones that voted for this legislation. So what governments did was to exchange jobs for votes. This type of relationship between citizens and politicians is called ‘clientelism’. Citizens knew that this was a corrupted relationship but they kept voting for the same people since they were also gaining from it.

The problem was that clientelism was creating a huge, inefficient and ineffective public sector consisting of untrained and unskilled personnel. The solution to this was then to outsource jobs to the private sector, but even then outsourcing was based on clientelism. As a result Greece’s budget deficit grew.

How did Greek governments cover these budget deficits? By borrowing money; but because almost every year Greece’s budget was in deficit, it needed more and more loans, not only to cover its deficits but to pay interest for the previous loans. Imagine a procedure like this happening for more than 30 years from many public authorities that managed public money. This is how Greece’s debt was created.

However, Greek governments didn’t seem to care since they were able to borrow money. Especially after Greece joined the EU in 1981 and the Eurozone in 2001, borrowing became easier. Everything was operating smoothly because deficits were covered by loans and interest was covered by more loans.

The true scale of Greek debt came to surface in the 2008 financial crises. Greece was not able to borrow money because its creditability was characterized as excessively low since possible lenders, given the world financial situation, wouldn’t risk their money in Greece as they had done before.

At this point an economist would discuss whether Greece should have gotten out of the Eurozone; about the IMF and the EU coming to Greece and applying memorandums so that lenders could start getting their money back; and by analysing which measures could help Greece to reduce its debt. But I am not an economist and think that focusing only on what needs to be done in order for Greece’s lenders to get their money back might lead to more debt creation all over again.

Rather, what I am interested in is the relationship between citizens and politicians that seems to be the starting point of Greece’s problem.

Why is this relationship important? Clientelism, as previously described, requires money which the public sector doesn’t have. As such, this clientelism has started to break down. Neither politicians nor citizens can gain from this relationship anymore, and it might be time for a new relationship to be established. Of course, effort and measures need to be taken to address financial concerns, but research on the relationship between politicians and citizens – the starting point of the problem – is also necessary.

My proposed possible solution for re-establishing this relationship is citizen participation. Participation can bring citizens and politicians closer than they currently are and can create a space for them to meet and interact. This may lead citizens to rebuild their trust in politicians, if they realise that politicians care about what they have to say.

Yet this needs to be a two-way procedure. Politicians also must realise that citizens can help and contribute to policy formation and that they should be allowed to participate in these processed. This might also lead to a rethinking of the identities of ‘citizen’ and ‘politician’. Not only do citizens need to change their beliefs about politicians, but politicians too need to change their beliefs about citizens – and participation might be a way to achieve this.

Citizens and politicians in Greece need to connect and this is the time to establish a positive relationship. The relationship established 30-40 years ago was neither healthy nor democratic. My research considers whether citizen participation can help establish a new relationship and which forms of participation are perceived to be more significant. However, at this stage it is already clear that effort is needed from both sides – otherwise citizenship participation will be used as a very undemocratic tool despite its democratic principles, and will lead to the manipulation of citizens by politicians.

despotidis

George Despotidis is a first year Doctoral Researcher in INLOGOV. He completed an MSc in Public Management, also at INLOGOV, in 2012. His research interests include citizen involvement in policy-making, and decision-making processes with a specific focus on citizen participation. Follow him on Twitter here.

The impact factor

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Katherine Tonkiss

I completed my PhD thesis in early 2012, under the joint supervision of INLOGOV and the Department of Political Science and International Studies (POLSIS). I sat my viva in April of that year and shortly afterwards was interviewed for and gained a three year research fellowship at INLOGOV, working with Professor Chris Skelcher on the Shrinking the State project. A year into the post, this is a good opportunity to reflect on that transition from PhD to post-doc research.

In many ways, working as a Research Fellow on a three year project is similar to PhD study. I am completing a research project in a specified amount of time, with parameters and methods specified in a detailed research proposal. The goal of delivering the thesis in a timely fashion is replaced by the requirement to produce a set of research outcomes with which to wow the funders on completion of the project, and of course the need to publish, publish, publish never really changes.

Yet the transition from PhD to post-doc has also presented some new opportunities and challenges. One aspect is going from sole-authored thesis-writing to team working with colleagues both on the research project and beyond. While in reality I do have quite a lot of autonomy in my current role and the majority of my time is spent working alone on specific areas of the project, this project involves working with a team of five researchers split across three Universities. This kind of collaboration is now very common in academic research – and while it is step change from PhD research, I was quite pleased to enter a more collaborative environment.

Another challenge of the transition is balancing research priorities. I was told on numerous occasions during my PhD studies that researching and writing a thesis is something to really enjoy, because I would never again have the opportunity to immerse myself in my own research to such an extent. In reality, I have been really fortunate to be provided the time to turn my PhD thesis into a book, as well as having some time to pursue my other research interests separate to the project. However, pre-planning was key in achieving this – I had thought about a book contract before my viva was completed, and the three articles I have had published were all accepted before I started working as a Research Fellow. I also don’t think I would be so fortunate if I had the hefty teaching responsibilities which come with many junior academic roles.

The biggest difference between PhD and post-doc research is, though, the emphasis that is placed on ‘impact’ in the latter – that is, producing research that both advances academic knowledge and has a positive economic and societal impact. This impact agenda, while offering rewarding opportunities to engage in debates beyond academia, was challenging in terms of the transition from PhD to post-doc research – and particularly because my PhD was strongly theoretical.

For example, working on this research project has meant developing and maintaining relationships with partners in government and elsewhere, producing research outputs that are useful to them in their work in addition to being relevant to the overall objectives of the project. My colleagues at INLOGOV are very used to this way of working, but it really was a new experience for me after the PhD. Within a couple of months of starting my job, I found myself presenting to senior civil servants in Whitehall. Experiences such as this have allowed me to engage in discussion and debate far beyond the ivory tower, but they are a far cry from the late-night loneliness of thesis writing that I had become accustomed to.

Impact isn’t just about engaging with policy-makers, though. Throughout my PhD, I felt that I was researching and writing about something that I was really passionate about – which, I hope, is a common experience. This isn’t something that’s gone away now that research has become my day job – and indeed exploring intersections between normative ideas and lived experiences has become one of my core research interests. As much as there is a case for producing policy-relevant research in order to work with partners in government, it should also be recognised that research – in whatever discipline – is a tool with which to challenge dominant ideas and assumptions, and the ability to engage in the policy process and to communicate with different audiences in order to enact change is just as – if not more – important.

With the impact agenda now spanning all areas of academic research, it may be argued that it is more important than ever for PhD students to equip themselves with the skills to develop this kind of dual-facing work. I’m not decided on that – I think there can be excellent research without wider impact and these contributions are to be equally valued. However, the opportunity to see your research have an impact beyond academia can be very rewarding, and to that end developing those skills is really worthwhile.

tonkiss

Katherine Tonkiss completed her PhD in 2012, and is now a Research Fellow at INLOGOV. Her first book, Migration and Identity in a Post-national World, will be published later this year with Palgrave Macmillan. Her research interests are focused on the changing nature of migration, citizenship and democracy in a globalising world, the local experience of such transformations, and the intersection between normative and empirical research. Follow her Twitter feed here.