Impact case study database

Leston-Bandeira’s research has (i) altered parliamentary officials’ understanding of public engagement in Australia, Brazil, Portugal and the UK, and (ii) changed how public engagement is implemented in the Brazilian, Portuguese and UK parliaments. Her research has provided an evidence-base and policy recommendations that have helped parliamentarians better understand, enhance and promote engagement with the public. Whilst parliaments have therefore been the direct beneficiaries of her research, the general public also ultimately benefits through access to more effective mechanisms (e.g. e-petitions) and greater capacity within parliaments to facilitate this engagement.

i) Changing understandings of public engagement within parliaments

Leston-Bandeira’s longstanding expertise on PPE has led to invitations from several legislatures to be part of key commissions reviewing public engagement processes and/or to give evidence to key inquiries. She was first invited in 2014 by the Speaker of the UK House of Commons to be the only academic among eight core members of the Digital Democracy Commission (DDC). Since then, drawing on her research developed at the University of Leeds, she has continued to be involved in the implementation of the DDC report’s recommendations within the UK Parliament, engaging with officials on a regular basis across a range of services, from committees to digital engagement. This has led to further invitations and a deeper working relationship with parliamentary officials in a range of legislatures besides the UK Parliament. In 2016, she was invited by the President of the Portuguese Parliament to be the special adviser to their *Digital Parliament Commission (*DPC), which was followed by an invitation to help shape and give evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Parliamentary Reform Commission (PRC) in November 2016. These Commissions and their subsequent implementation work drew heavily from her research [1-3,5,6], with Leston-Bandeira’s input being instrumental in highlighting the importance of focusing parliamentary tools on the needs of the public, rather than on parliamentary processes. The former UK House of Commons Speaker explains that her ‘evidence-based approach’ made ‘an enormous contribution to the success of the [DDC]’ [A], whilst the Portuguese Parliament’s President remarks that collaborating with Leston-Bandeira was ‘invaluable’ for the DPC [B].

In 2019, Leston-Bandeira played an important role in the House of Commons Liaison Committee’s inquiry into the effectiveness of select committees. Besides her formal submission of evidence, she was closely involved in the set-up of the public engagement themes of this inquiry, as well as shaping the inquiry’s recommendations. She was firstly invited to a private meeting of the Committee, where she made key contributions, as recognised by the Former Chair of the Committee in her letter commending Leston-Bandeira’s involvement [C]; this was followed by meetings with the Committee’s clerks in the run up to the writing of the inquiry’s report. Leston-Bandeira’s research on PPE became a key piece of evidence convincing the Committee of the need for a more systemic approach to public engagement and of the importance of listening rather than broadcasting, reflected in the report’s first heading about public engagement ( [D], p. 22). Her evidence was cited 17 times in the report to support a move towards a more integrated use of public engagement across committee work, rather than as a parallel or an add-on activity, and the adoption of more accessible formats in committee reports in order to reach a wider audience of citizens. One of the most senior officials of the House of Commons at the time, the Clerk of Committees, stated that the ‘ landmark report’ established that committees should ‘ turn towards the public in all committee activity’ [D].

Leston-Bandeira’s research has also impacted upon the planning of public engagement by the House of Lords, namely through the written and oral evidence she submitted to its Constitution Committee in 2018, specifically on effectively integrating public engagement into the law-making process [2,a]. This evidence was cited in the inquiry’s report, with paragraphs 110 to 112 listing further opportunities for public engagement in the legislative process, directly following Leston-Bandeira’s own recommendations [E].

Beyond Westminster, Leston-Bandeira’s research has informed the Scottish Parliament PRC’s 2017 conclusions, namely recommendations no. 62 and 67 , which call for the creation of a Committee Engagement Unit and a ‘more personalised system of feedback to those who engage with it’ ( [F], p. 61, 66). Both recommendations reflect Leston-Bandeira’s oral and written evidence calling for a better integration between public engagement and parliamentary business by focussing on committees and being issue-led, which makes sure the feedback loop to citizens is closed. The new Unit was subsequently created in 2018, with which Leston-Bandeira has continued collaboration and direct policy change. As noted by the Head of the Committee, Leston-Bandeira ‘was a key influence on the remit given to my unit… focusing on issues-based engagement in the work of committees (…) we have drawn on [her] research in developing our engagement practice (…) in particular her findings about the importance to citizens of the engagement process (…) [and] on the role of social media in public engagement to develop our use of social media towards dialogue rather than just information giving’ [F].

As outlined above, Leston-Bandeira has also changed the thinking of parliamentary officials beyond the UK. In 2019 she was invited for a Visiting Fellowship in Brazil where she advised officials in the Brazilian Congress on the integration of public engagement into parliamentary structures, based on her research on e-petitions [6]. The Head of the e-Citizenship Programme of the Brazilian Senate confirms, ‘her research on the UK e-petitions system (…) enlightened me and directly influenced me (…). This [new method] enables citizens to have a clearer perception of how their input into the Senate’s e-Citizenship programme has led to specific draft bills and other outputs’ [G]. The international reach of her research is further demonstrated by invitations from the petitions committees of the Australian Parliament and of Western Australia’s State Legislature, which cited specifically her expertise when inviting her: ‘given your work on parliament and public engagement, the Committee is interested in your insights into the role of petitions in a modern parliament’ [H]. Leston-Bandeira’s evidence was cited eight times in the Australian Parliament’s report on their petitions system, in relation to how debates on petitions are conducted. The committee subsequently recommended the introduction of debates on petitions to enhance petitions’ visibility [H].

ii) Changing how parliaments implement public engagement

Besides changing understandings of public engagement, Leston-Bandeira’s research has also impacted upon actual practices, with consequent benefits for both officials and the general public. She was involved with key preparatory work for the new UK Parliament e-petitions system launched in 2015. Since then, over 70,000 petitions have been submitted to this new system, with over 21,000 accepted, nearly 200 debated and over 24 million unique signatures. Since joining Leeds in 2015, she has worked closely with the new Petitions Committee to provide research evidence and expert advice on the new system’s processes and policy, to make it more impactful in terms of policy effect and petitioners’ satisfaction. This has been facilitated via over 100 regular meetings, email correspondence with the Committee staff, co-development of research and participation in events.

These activities were supported by an ESRC-funded Impact Acceleration Account Knowledge Exchange Fellowship for Leston-Bandeira awarded in 2016 [b], which allowed her to shadow the Petitions Committee in 2016/17 and study its workings. This has led to continuing knowledge exchange and co-production with the Committee (with over 30 meetings with Committee staff and in excess of 100 email exchanges since the Fellowship), developing further research on the processes implementing the e-petitions system and petitioners’ reactions to these [5,6]. This resulted in a 2017 report to the Committee, outlining five overarching recommendations and 39 specific recommendations [4], which has had a strong impact on the e-petitioning process. As one of the Committee’s officials remarked: ‘Cristina’s research showed us that we were concentrating very much on what we could do, on changes that we could make (…). But looking at the report and the recommendations, it was quite clear that that was exactly our bias – it didn’t reflect what needed to be done to achieve our aim of really enhancing the relationship between Parliament and the public’ [I]. As a result, the Petitions Committee has adopted Leston-Bandeira’s 2017 report as a key element in its development, utilising her recommendations to plan further developments in the system, directly informing the Committee’s Public Engagement Strategy. A Committee official explained the importance of the report for the Committee’s self-reflection: ‘the report and her work is frequently brought up in discussions about how we can do better, when we examine our working practices and is used as evidence to support the changes we need’ [J]. This led to changes, such as a differentiated focus on petitioners, by inviting them to the parliamentary debate of their e-petition, and an enhancement of the petitions debates so as to be more inclusive and integrated with parliamentary business. Specifically, the Committee used her research ‘to evidence the need for changes to the e-petitions site, such as changing the language used’ and ‘to bid successfully for resources to connect petitioners with other items of parliamentary business related to the topic of their petition, which will affect how millions of people engage with Parliament’ [J].

Besides her work with the Petitions Committee, Leston-Bandeira has influenced how digital engagement is implemented in the House of Commons. For example, following a DDC recommendation to introduce ‘digital debates’, she led on a collaborative project with the House of Commons to investigate enhancement of digital engagement. Thanks to this collaboration, in 2019 three committees (on plastics use in packaging, pavement parking, and endangered species) accepted suggestions based on her research [2,4,6] to link their inquiries to ongoing petitions. This helped the Committees reach a wider public affected by the issues addressed in the inquiries (for example, in excess of 300,000 people in the case of the report into plastics use; EFRA 2019, p.5).

In addition, Leston-Bandeira’s research [6] has informed the new e-petitions system and digital platforms in the Portuguese Parliament, inaugurated in 2018, by making it more public centred and enabling the public to track the progress of their e-petition. This resulted in a completely new approach on the parliament’s website, adopting open data, and a more citizen-oriented communication approach. The President of the Portuguese Parliament explains that Leston-Bandeira’s work ‘was decisive to develop even further the investment on citizens’ participation and to advance towards more and better instances of bilateral communication with citizens (namely through the creation of the online platforms, on Parliament’s new portal, the submission and collection of signatures of petitions, citizens’ legislative initiatives and popular referendums’ initiatives)’ [B]. Her research [5,6] has also led to changes in elements of the Brazilian Senate’s E-Cidadania platform to make the outputs of petitioning clearer to those citizens making suggestions for policy change [G].

Leston-Bandeira’s research has therefore both affected how officials perceive the purpose and use of public engagement, and resulted in changes in the actual practice of public engagement of at least three parliaments.

The main beneficiary of the underpinning research has been DFID, which: i) changed how DFID conducted messaging research, and; ii) influenced its communication strategy, helping it to better make the case for aid spending to the UK public. The co-produced research provided evidence that was used to justify internal resource allocation at DFID and beyond, with the research recommendations incorporated into toolkits on how to communicate about aid and national interest, which, the then Director of Communications at DFID explains, are ‘now used as part of [DFID’s] guidance to those who work on aid communications across government’ [A].

i) Changing research practices and building capacity at DFID

Close and sustained co-operation between the academics and the team at DFID was crucial for providing the Department with the necessary capacity for designing, implementing and analysing public opinion research, and has offered a new model for how it conducts research and creates evidence-bases for policymakers. As part of the research design phase, the research team introduced DFID to new experimental designs [a,6] that could allow pinpointed testing of various demographic groups so as to test specific messages in relation to those particular audiences. This allowed for greater nuance in determining how various groups respond to aid messaging, which had not been available previously to DFID’s Insight Team. In response, DFID invited Davies and collaborators to co-produce a customized survey with DFID’s Insight Team. Between 17 February 2016 and 16 March 2017, Davies led two survey design meetings, one additional remote meeting, and over 50 email exchanges with DFID so as to develop experiments that reflected their exact communication interests. DFID worked closely with the academics at every stage – designing the project, drafting the questionnaires, analysing the data, and reporting the results. DFID invited Davies and Johns to lead additional refinement efforts to test out various narratives for DFID, specifically those related to economic interests, international leadership, health security and related messages.

By the end of this period the research team jointly produced a series of messages that were then used in a pilot study which was fielded by Prolific (a company which recruits survey participants) amongst a section of the British public [B]. A report on these initial findings led to further refinement of the messages that were then tested in a nationally representative sample in January 2017 by the public opinion firm BMG [C]. According to the Director of Communications at DFID, this research was ‘invaluable in helping address a specific need for our communications strategy, namely to better understand how we create messaging that demonstrates the benefits of spending aid to the UK’. Since DFID itself did ‘not have the budget to gather insight’, and therefore lacked institutional capacity, the Director adds, ‘without the support of these academics we would not have been able to undertake this testing to inform our message development’ [A]. Furthermore, DFID’s Communications Team’s approach to carrying out research and using research data was impacted, with the Director stating, ‘as a result of this project we were able to make a case to secure funding from another government department to gather further insight on the topic’ and that the methods they would take from the research team would enable this future research to help them further understand ‘how we can best land these messages with the UK public’ [A]. The insights generated, along with the subsequent research mentioned above, has also been used to train and upskill government communications colleagues for use in social media, ministerial statements, and press lines [A,H].

ii) Changing messaging on national interest at DFID

The research subsequently influenced DFID’s framing of aid in terms of national interests and led to changes in their messaging, enabling challenging audiences to be reached. The findings were communicated at meetings at DFID (October 2017) and via a presentation to DFID’s communication team on the 15 December 2017 [E]. This meeting included the Head of Strategy and Insight, the Insight, Evaluation and Branding Advisor, and the Senior Communications Manager. In response to recommendations from the team, DFID changed their messaging strategy as detailed below.

The research highlighted the importance of a focus on health security, since this has the greatest overall public approval results. A former Communications Insight and Evaluation Advisor at DFID explains that this insight ‘was shared with the [Communications] division to help understand how communicating about health security could contribute to ministerial priorities to discuss the national interest, reinforcing existing insight, and adding further understanding to how the department can use health security messaging to talk about UK aid in the national interest’ [F]. This was put into practice during the 2019 #100WaysAidWorks social media campaign, where specific examples of health security narratives were used by the Secretary of State for International Development to highlight benefits to the UK [A,G]. Key indicators of the successes of the #100WaysAidsWorks campaign were an average of 21,617 impressions per tweet (range of 4,201-45,691) with an average 1.033 engagement rate (range of 0.39-2.46). There was also engagement internationally across country offices – 432 retweets from country offices or international stakeholders and the messages prompting stakeholder participation including: Centre for Disease Control Group, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Unilever, British Council, GAVI Alliance, London Zoo, Gates Foundation, VSO, UNICEF and more. According to DFID, this number and range of engagement was ‘higher than the average engagement with DFID Twitter content’ [G].

The research recommendations outlined that targeting certain audiences, namely the ‘marginally engaged’ on aid, with national security messages is very productive in generating their approval. This group is generally sceptical about aid yet can be won round by messages that focus on threats to the UK. This was ‘a new insight’ for DFID and added to guidance for communicating with this core audience [F]. Additionally, there is a need for positive narratives about specific projects with tangible outputs, without foregrounding budgeting and expenditure. The former Communications Insight and Evaluation Advisor explains that this ‘reinforced current insight (…) indicating that focussing on storytelling on an individual level works more effectively than [a focus on] money spent’ [F]** *. The study also found that some messages previously used by the DFID team were too indirect to be understood by the public. For example, the causal linkage between aid in Ethiopia and jobs in the UK was too complex to communicate effectively. These research recommendations informed the production of national media-targeted campaigns picked up by national newspapers in 2019, where DFID’s 'major headlines' - those issues and messages highlighted as having greatest resonance with the public - were repeated. This led to increases in social media traffic supportive of the UK government maintaining and justifying its aid commitments. DFID has provided examples from this campaign [H], including stories about spending its overseas aid budget on the fight against child sex tourism, which was reported in the Times (April 2019), and how British law enforcement is accessing the overseas aid budget for countering extremism in Africa, linked to the terrorism threat in the UK, which was reported in the Sun (March 2019). The Sun article maintained a focus on national security, the primary concern of the marginally engaged, and on a specific project, whilst only making general claims about the benefits to the UK. Meanwhile, the announcement of the ‘What Works – Impact at Scale’ initiative funded by DFID, which aims to scale up effective interventions, test innovations, and influence a more effective global response to preventing violence against women and girls, resulted in an article in the Guardian (November 2019) with a strong national interest headline, where expenditure is mentioned only in the subheading (reflecting study recommendations), and a positive in-depth article about multiple UK aid successes [H].

The research recommendations have been incorporated into ‘a specific “communicating in the national interest” pack. This has been presented to the communications division and discussed with other departmental colleagues, with the core message for the division being to focus on making national interest messaging credible’ [F]. This guidance directly informed the work of approximately 50 staff working in DFID communications as well as communications teams in other departments drawing on the overseas aid budget, together with relevant teams, such as DFID colleagues working on jobs and prosperity programmes in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Trade. Thus, the impact of this research can be understood to have affected the day-to-day work of the Department in drafting ministerial statements, media lines, and providing advice to special advisers, Cabinet Office, and relevant ministers [D]. The new Secretary of State for International Development was briefed using the revised guidance when starting at the department in 2019, improving their understanding of how both they, and the Department, can effectively communicate in the national interest (see ‘#100WaysAidWorks’ above) [A].

Following the merger of DFID with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in 2020, a Communication Manager at the new Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) explains that ‘the insights gained via this research now inform the wider comms strategy of the FCDO and are as relevant as they were before, potentially more so given emphasis in the prime minister’s announcement of the merger of showing how aid is spent in the interests of the UK’ [I]. The Prime Minister remarked: ‘we must mobilise every one of our national assets, including our aid budget and expertise, to safeguard British interests and values overseas’ [J]. To that end the research insights are now being shared and used in the new FCDO, including in training those working on aid spending [A].

Overall, the impact reach of the project can be seen in the fact that all staff writing government lines and ministerial statements are briefed on the national interest via the Communication Division’s guidance, which has shaped aid messaging to the benefit of the UK government [A].

ECR2P research is shaping the development of R2P policy in three significant ways: i) by the Centre becoming an evidence-generating knowledge hub changing policy understandings within the wider R2P policy community through global intellectual leadership; ii) setting the agenda and changing policy at the UN, and iii) shaping UK policy on mainstreaming R2P and atrocity prevention.

i) ECR2P has become an evidence-generating knowledge hub changing stakeholder understanding, strategies and policies for preventing mass atrocity. Since 2016, the scope of policy engagement and influence by ECR2P is illustrated by repeated invitations to its members to contribute written and oral research evidence to the UK Defence Select Committee and Foreign Affairs Select Committees and through directly influencing the work of NGOs and charitable organisations in the UK, such as the United Nations Association UK (UNA-UK) and Protection Approaches [A,B], which are the two flagship UK organisations working on protection, prevention of atrocities and R2P, and who are now affiliated partners with ECR2P (see iii) below). As just one set of examples, Gallagher presented research with follow-up oral evidence to the House of Commons Defence Committee on Iraq and Syria and threats posed by ISIS in October 2014. Gallagher’s evidence-base was cited in the CDC report on ISIS in Iraq and Syria (p. 16) and provided influential recommendations on the legality of airstrikes in Iraq and Syria [C]. A former MP and Defence Committee member remarks: ‘ Dr Gallagher played a key role in shaping the Committee’s understanding of this topic which is reflected in the fact that the final report cites his evidence [which] helped the Committee differentiate between legal and illegal action under the Responsibility to Protect framework’ [D]. In addition, Gallagher was invited to give written evidence on ‘The Extent and Effectiveness of Post-Conflict Planning in Libya’ to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, which was cited in its final report (2016-17, pp. 26-27) [E]. Written evidence from Gallagher and Ralph provided post-Brexit strategy recommendations to a 2018 Foreign Affairs Select Committee on ‘Global Britain: R2P and Humanitarian Intervention’ (Report, pp. 6, 8, 10) [F]. In non-governmental settings, ECR2P has directly influenced The UK Working Group on Atrocity Prevention, an umbrella group which includes all UK organisations focusing on reducing the risk of mass atrocities worldwide and on influencing the UK government policy on the topic. This UK Working Group has drawn upon ECR2P’s research expertise and findings [5] to inform about which R2P policies to lobby the UK government [A,B], specifically within a post-Brexit context.

ii) Directly influencing and shaping UN agenda on R2P and atrocity prevention through formal partnership agreements and consultancies to the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the R2P. As detailed below, these activities include the development of policy to change the UN Office’s consultancy process with UN Member States, direct contributions towards redefining the strategic priorities of the UN Joint Office, drafting contributions to the UN Secretary-General’s Annual Report on R2P, and providing analysis and research-based critical evidence synthesis to shape the development of prevention-oriented policy through the UN’s Atrocity Prevention Assessment project [G,H].

One of Stefan’s research contributions highlights the importance of including states from the Global South in designing R2P-related responses at the UN [1]. This is critical, because while most atrocity prevention efforts occur in the Global South, states from these regions are often absent from policy design and decision-making at the UN, thereby undermining both the legitimacy and efficacy of R2P interventions. Her analysis was used during the organisation of preliminary discussions running up to the drafting of the Secretary-General’s Annual Report on the R2P, during Stefan’s secondment to the UN in May-June 2017. It was during this secondment that Stefan’s recommendation to broaden inclusion of regional powers like Brazil within preliminary UN discussions was adopted by the UN Office. The former UN Special Advisor to the Secretary-General on R2P remarks: ‘ Dr. Stefan’s research on legitimating R2P processes within the UN, and the need to include emerging powers such as Brazil, has made us reconsider the role of Member States from the Global South and to change the way we invite and encourage these actors to participate in R2P related processes and decision-making. This change in policy has been a crucial first step towards making the R2P more inclusive, and more representative of regional perspectives, thus increasing R2P’s legitimacy’ [G]. This inclusion ‘ has directly changed the way the UN Office engages with the policy preferences from the Global South’ and provided strategic opportunities for R2P advancement in terms of increased legitimacy and support [G].

Stefan was asked by the R2P Special Advisor to the Secretary General to contribute written text to the 2017 UN Secretary-General’s report on ‘Implementing the Responsibility to Protect: Accountability for Prevention’, which acknowledges the regional potential towards the prevention of atrocities [G]. Stefan’s research-based evidence [1,2] informed the 2017 UN Report on R2P to stress the relationship between legitimate processes, Security Council processes, and the need for collaborative work, with Stefan being ‘the first to propose including a section on the important role played by regional players, to highlight the need for collaborative efforts to address atrocities effectively … In the longer term, this will lead to much greater legitimacy in the UN’s operationalization of R2P’ [G]. The final report was submitted to the Secretary-General and his executive office. Stefan was also consulted by Strategy for Humanity, an organisation commissioned to conduct a strategic review of the priorities of the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and R2P in 2016. The former Head of the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and R2P affirms that Stefan’s ‘ recommendations pertaining to strategic priorities for the Responsibility to Protect agenda at the United Nations contributed to the subsequent recalibration of the Joint Office’s strategy and priorities’ [H].

As a result of Stefan shaping UN thinking on inclusionary R2P practices, the UN Special Advisor on R2P invited her to contribute to a new Atrocity Prevention Assessment project, designed to inform the United Nations’ overall policy on atrocity prevention [G,H]. The project’s ‘final report is shaping UN’s policy on atrocity prevention, being the first comprehensive UN assessment of prevention risk factors’ [G]. Stefan’s research on Guinea [2] was one of seven cases informing the Atrocity Prevention Assessment project [G,H], and ‘supplied an evidence-base for [UN Office] prevention analysis and identified the combination of effective preventive tools used in Guinea, which the UN could replicate elsewhere under similar conditions and in collaborations with regional and national actors’ [H]. The prevention measures that Stefan identified ‘provided useful examples to inform our [UN Joint Office] overall prevention assessment and further recommendations, [which] aimed to facilitate practical implementation’ [H]. From Stefan’s research findings, ‘the UN Joint Office was able to incorporate the evidence into the final assessment, which made a significant contribution to [UN Office] overall thinking and prevention strategy’ [G]. The overall assessment ‘produced lessons learned to advance atrocity prevention and to improve cost effectiveness ... The project also provided practical implementation advice for the United Nations Secretary-General’s overall prevention vision’ [G].

iii) Influencing UK policy on R2P and atrocity prevention through formal partnership agreements, research collaborations, and the production of policy reports for key institutions working on prevention and protection in the UK. Ralph’s research on R2P in the UK context [3,5] has directly changed UK advocacy groups’ policy recommendations as well as their efforts to inform UK government policy in its effort to develop more effective strategies to prevent mass atrocities through the R2P [A,B]. The Director of Protection Approaches, one of the UK’s leading advocacy groups on ending identity-based violence, states, ‘[Ralph’s] recommendations on how to integrate atrocity prevention into government practices significantly helped to shape our thinking on UK R2P mainstreaming, and we both incorporated its findings and cited the report in our own policy brief of May 2018, Towards a national approach to atrocities’ [5,B]. Similarly, the Head of Policy at UNA-UK states that Ralph’s research ‘formed the centrepiece of our lobbying efforts in this area’, and they invited him to write its briefing report on Mainstreaming the Responsibility to Protect in UK Strategy [5] and to co-write a second report on ‘Global Britain’ [I]. The first report was presented in the UK Parliament in April 2014 and was made the focus for discussion at a one-day practitioner workshop on the R2P hosted by the UNA-UK at the British Academy. According to the Head of Policy for UNA-UK, ‘ it was through the publication of the report that we were able to get the government to clarify who the UK R2P Focal Point was’ [A], designating Paul Arkwright as the first of several diplomats to hold this position – in-line with Ralph’s recommendation to heighten the significance of the role [A]. Similarly, Ralph’s co-authored report on R2P and Global Britain [I] was presented in the UK Parliament and to the House of Lords in February 2019. Following these engagements, in July 2019 the Foreign & Commonwealth Office Policy Paper on the UK’s Approach to Preventing Mass Atrocities [J] explained that ‘[g]iven that the majority of atrocities occur in and around conflict, the UK has dedicated significant resources to addressing crises and conflict by means of a comprehensive cross-governmental response’ and also stressed the usefulness of the Joint Analysis of Conflict and Stability assessment tool (JACS) for the identification of situation-specific interventions, both of which were recommendations made in Ralph’s UNA-UK report ( [5], pp.14-19; 26-27). As confirmed by the Head of Policy at UNA-UK [A]: ‘ The analysis and recommendations of the report formed the basis of subsequent UNA-UK lobbying efforts on R2P, and these have, through the collective efforts of the Working Group [on Atrocity Prevention], helped to deliver change in UK policy. In particular, and in response to the Foreign Affairs Committee’s recent call for a coherent and more precise strategy on atrocity prevention, Foreign Office Minister Lord Ahmed promised to do more in this area’. Likewise, the Head of Protection Approaches [B] writes: ‘ Prof. Ralph’s underpinning research, combined with these efforts across civil society, has impressed upon the government the need for more systematic thinking in this area. The Foreign Secretary and Foreign Office Minister have stated publicly that they are committed to do more to prevent atrocity and government departments, including the Foreign Office and Stabilisation Unit, who are now reaching out to Protection Approaches and ECR2P for advice on how to change strategy and practices, including CSSF and JACS’, a research recommendation of Ralph [5].

Dyer’s career-long research has: (i) helped set the international agenda by raising global awareness of pastoralist’s education needs, providing an evidence base to inform and shape global policy effort, and; instituting livelihood-sensitive approaches to pastoralists’ education inclusion within national policy strategies in (ii) Ethiopia and (iii) Mongolia.

(i) Raising awareness and providing an evidence-base for global education policy and practice for international organisations and NGOs

Dyer’s research has played a crucial role in helping key global and national education actors to understand pastoralists’ educational needs for global advocacy and national policies. Global efforts to raise awareness and inform an educational agenda for change widely use her research, and international organisations regularly commission her technical expertise to generate research evidence and policy advice. For example, several UN Global Education Monitoring Reports (GEMRs) have drawn upon her evidence and analyses. Established in 2002, the GEMR is an annual agenda-setting report with thematic foci, used by state and non-state decision makers seeking evidence to inform their actions on inclusive and equitable quality education at national, regional and global levels. These Reports play a crucial role in informing educational stakeholders on policy ‘best practice’ and presenting evidence that supports educational policy reforms aiming to achieve SDG4. The 2019 GEMR, which argues that ‘nomad and pastoralist education needs are not addressed’ ( [A] p. 22 ), for example, makes six citations of Dyer’s Educate A Child (EAC)/German International Cooperation Institute (GIZ) commissioned, co-authored study [6] and presents her evidence on networked schooling [1] in its reporting on global efforts to adjust education to livelihood-related mobility [A]. Dyer’s 2014 Background Paper (which became **[4]**), commissioned for the 2000-2015 global overview of Education for All in the 2015 GEMR, is cited as key evidence seven times within the four paragraphs devoted to nomadic pastoralists [B]. The 2019 GEMR’s use of Dyer’s updated evidence [6] to argue that nomads’ needs are not addressed, that education should be adjusted to seasonality and mobility, and its relevance to their livelihoods improved, shows how her research has raised issue awareness and sharpened understanding ( [A] pp. 21-22).

Dyer’s research has highlighted evidence gaps and this has led to collaborations aiming to close them, including with UNESCO, Save the Children [C], the British Council, the UN’s GEMR team, EAC and GIZ [D]. Dyer engaged with non-academic stakeholders via events in Doha (2017), Berlin (2016), Atlanta (2017), and the University of Leeds (2018 and 2019 conferences w/ Save the Children, ca. 60 participants). The Executive Director at EAC commends Dyer’s innovative suggestion of adding interviews to supplement the desk research it commissioned, which ‘ increased our reach’ as a ‘ wide range of actors wanted the opportunity to discuss issues and contribute’ and enabled EAC to ‘ share through our global network the practical and policy challenges faced when providing quality education for children from mobile populations’ [D]. The research highlighted for EAC and ‘implementing partners’ the ‘ need to programme in specific ways to provide education to some of the hardest to reach children’, with ‘ clear examples of how policy and programmatic approaches can be implemented to meet the educational needs of children who find themselves “on the move”’ [D].

A Senior Education Advisor at Save the Children describes Dyer as a ‘thought leader’ who is ‘ internationally recognised as an authoritative source on pastoralist education research’ [C]. Her research is understood as ‘ critical for policy and practice as it highlights the urgent need to intervene in a unique, pastoralist centred approach if we are to reach those children who are left behind, and contribute to the realisation of SDGs’. The charity uses Dyer’s research as a ‘ great resource and addition to our knowledge bank’ and ‘ point of reference when designing new projects’ to ‘ inform our education programming and advocacy in various pastoralist contexts we work’ [C]. In particular, Dyer’s work on ‘networked schooling’ [1], which Save innovated and Dyer sharpened, resulted in ‘ an impact in Ethiopia by providing a model enabling hard to reach communities to gain education access’ [see below] with ‘ very good potential for other international applications with mobile populations’, and will also ‘inform […] our future programming’ [C].

In Mongolia (2019), the collaborative research methodology Dyer shaped to fit the ‘distinctive education and development context’, outlined below in (iii), has inspired UNESCO to revise its internal guidelines for best practice on how to carry out further Education Policy Reviews [E]. Her applied research ‘ contributed to UNESCO’s Major Programme I (Education) and the specific expected result “improved national education policies and plans to advance access to equitable and quality [early childhood care and education], primary and secondary education through a system-wide lifelong learning approach”’ . Dyer’s expertise contributed to ‘strengthening UNESCO’s esteem as a respected knowledge organization providing policy analysis and advice’, whilst some of the EPR’s conclusions ‘are relevant far beyond Mongolia to the global debate on education and learning’ [E].

(ii) Changing education policy in Ethiopia to better include marginalised pastoralists

Ethiopia’s pastoralist population comprises ca. 12-15 million people and rates of education participation among pastoralist children fall far below national averages [F]. Dyer was appointed as the international expert to conduct research and co-author Ethiopia’s Pastoralist Education Strategy 2017 (PES 2017) by the government’s Quality Education Strategic Support Programme (QESSP). A former educational consultant for UNICEF Ethiopia explains that Dyer’s ‘expertise greatly assisted in formulating a policy that was more focused, and progressive in terms of intent and language’ [G]. Her review of international evidence on delivery modalities and empirical analysis of implementation of the Pastoralist Education Strategy 2008 changed the strategic emphasis of the new 2017 Strategy to focus on a wider range of delivery approaches, and embedded lessons from her long-standing research by including details of modalities and extensive guidance on stakeholder roles and responsibilities for implementation [1,4]. Dyer led stakeholder workshops with field teams of UNICEF and Save the Children, and with three government Regional Education Bureaux, which evidenced high dependence for pastoralists’ education inclusion on under-resourced, poorly managed Alternative Basic Education Centres. This evidence, and its equity implications, was discussed at a national consultation meeting (Addis Ababa, April 2016) for 20 key ministerial, inter-agency and civil-society stakeholders. The discussion ‘greatly supported development partners to identify best practices and highlight the great needs within this nomadic/semi nomadic setting’ [G]. For UNICEF, the situation analysis was a ‘ strong independent piece of empirical research’ which prompted UNICEF to commission its own external evaluation of Alternative Basic Education to ‘determine the pitfalls’ [G]. In July 2017, Dyer was an expert respondent for the evaluation, which makes 16 references to the situation analysis findings [H]. In combination, both bodies of research ‘ showed a gap in understanding the considerable investment needed to deliver quality pastoralist education’ [G]. UNICEF subsequently ‘ decided to shift its focus to improving the quality of education in these settings and creating a more equitable standard, instead of supporting large scale ABE [Alternative Basic Education Centres] construction, without adequate follow through’ [G]. UNICEF affirms that under Dyer’s guidance and co-authorship, PES 2017 departed from ‘ a litany of different approaches borrowed from other countries that were often not implemented, and/or not adequately supported or monitored’ and ‘ instead allowed the Government to reflect more internally on the shortcomings in pastoral settings and narrow the focus based on lessons learned from the situational analysis’ [G]. The PES 2017 and revised ABE guidelines, along with the system strengthening focus that Dyer emphasised, are reported as outputs of the now completed QESSP ( [I], p. 12), setting the policy agenda of the government and development actors’ support for the years ahead [F].

(iii) Re-focusing education policy in Mongolia to emphasise lifelong learning and education’s role in sustainable pastoralism and rural futures

The official with responsibility for managing the 2019 UNESCO Education Policy Review ( EPR), commissioned by the government of Mongolia (where some 30% of the 3.2 million population is involved in mobile pastoralism), explains that Dyer’s globally recognised promotion of pastoralists’ education inclusion, underpinned by her ‘deep intellectual enquiry and sustained commitment to the well-being of these communities’, led directly to UNESCO commissioning her as international lead for the EPR [E,J] . Dyer ‘ brought research findings from Kenya, Ethiopia and India to bear on the policy debates in Mongolia on ‘productivity’, access to quality and relevant education, and the long-term national vision for sustainable development’ [E]. Her grasp of global evidence and Mongolia-specific research findings brought ‘ new perspectives to counterparts and national education stakeholders’ and enabled the UN team to integrate into the EPR recommendations to re-orient education to support pastoralism, rural development, and national Green Economy pledges; and to challenge the narrow focus on industrial employability in the technical and vocational (TVET) sector [E]. At the beginning of the EPR process, Dyer advised the Mongolian Institute of Education Research (MIER) to include a new, separate section to highlight pastoralists’ education status in the Country Report that MIER authored, which the UN then used as the foundation document for the EPR. As a result of Dyer’s input, the UN’s EPR [J], which focuses on lifelong learning for all, included a specific, separate Policy Domain for pastoralists’ education (Policy Domain 3, pp. 103-118). Furthermore, the UN’s EPR team leader found that Dyer’s expertise on pastoralism ‘ significantly enhanced the credibility and standing of the EPR team, in the eyes of national officials and stakeholders, and international development partners, such as UNICEF, the World Bank, the Global Partnership for Education, and the Asian Development Bank’ [E]. The EPR provides a range of prioritised policy recommendations, including improved and equitable provision for pastoralists [J]. Many of Dyer’s recommendations have been included subsequently in Mongolia’s forthcoming 2020-30 Education Master Plan , which is the policy framework for all education sector activity for the next ten years and directly draws on the EPR. As a result, in the UN EPR team leader’s view, Dyer’s work ‘ will undoubtedly impact on the future governance and strategic directions of education in Mongolia as well as the character of development cooperation’ [E].