Impact – Working with Practitioners
Academics should bring the benefits of their research and expertise to the world beyond academia. In 2005 I had the opportunity of working with a major international organisation in a way which would deliver a significant change and benefit to how it performed. Ben Slay, the head of UNDP's Bratislava-based regional office for the Eastern Europe and CIS Region, approached LSE looking for advice and assistance with developing a newsletter which would do several things:
- to raise awareness, improve communication and strengthen the dissemination of the UNDP's own development work in the region both within and outside the organisation.
- provide a forum in which academics and practitioners could engage on the major issues with which UNDP was concerned, such as economic growth and development, human capital, institutional capacity building, good governance, promoting civil society, social exclusion/inclusion, human security and the better management of conflict potential.
My research expertise over the previous decade straddled a number of the issues which were of primary concern to UNDP – EU enlargement and regional development, and minorities and conflict management. I was asked to be the co-editor with Ben Slay.
The product that we co-devised was a 20-25 page newsletter/ analytical brief made up of apporximately ten short articles, and produced three times a year. About half the content was solicited by me from academics/non-UNDP contributors, and the other half came from UNDP regional offices in the main.
The newsletter was structured to focus on thematic challenges, whereby the LSE commissioned authors would provide theoretical overviews of the latest cutting edge research, or empirical reports of research, and the UNDP authors communicated the outcome of their project work across the region.
I remained editor until early 2011, when we parted company amicably. During this time I co-edited 16 issues of the newsletter, and attended several launch events with practitioners. I also helped UNDP to develop a website for the newsletter, which greatly improved its ability to communicate its work in practitioner and academic communities. A full archive of the content is freely available at the UNDP's Archives.