Impact case study database

Before O’Loughlin’s research, the practice of how soft power was used by governments and other cultural institutions had been overlooked and misunderstood. His research changed this in ways reflected both in policy and in practice.

Strategic Narratives fed into national policy debate through the House of Lords Committee. Its report compelled an Her Majesty’s Government (HMG) response that demonstrated the influence of O’Loughlin’s research, leading directly to policy decisions regarding Chevening Scholarships and diplomatic training. It informed public policy further by transforming how the British Council conceptualised soft power and used that conception to justify its value within government and to create new dialogue with external stakeholders. Between 2016 and 2018 the research led to changes in international policy practice. Co-production of research and evaluation with the British Council and Goethe Institute made it possible to both enact and demonstrate the value of audience research techniques recommended in O’Loughlin’s Strategic Narratives (2013) [R.3] and Forging the World (2017) [R.1] in Ukraine and Egypt as well as through global digital campaigns.

The main findings of Strategic Narratives [R.3] informed the 60,000 word report O’Loughlin wrote for the House of Lords Soft Power Committee. This allowed HMG to first learn about, formally acknowledge, and affirm the appropriateness and use of his theory of how strategic narratives shape soft power. Furthermore, they were willing to act upon his findings and recommendations, introducing a number of changes to policy and practice in 2014 following the report [E.2]. Strategic Narratives’ findings also led the British Council to invite O’Loughlin to work directly with them to enact these findings, notably through a global digital campaign in 2016. His work also informed policies in the Goethe Institute, by exploring new methods to understand target audiences’ understandings of the cultural ‘value’ of engaging with Germany.

Changing HMG’s understanding and practice of narrative influence: In the 2013 book Strategic Narratives [R.3] strategic narrative was defined as ‘a means by which political actors attempt to construct a shared meaning of the past, present, and future of international politics to shape the behaviour of domestic and international actors’ (p2). This conceptualisation was central to the Soft Power report. HMG’s official response [E.2] used this conceptualisation to explain how they practised strategic narrative and why they did not require an additional strategic narrative ‘unit’ in the Cabinet Office because they thought they were already achieving a coherent narrative across government. HMG asserted ‘There is already a mechanism in place’ for this (p11). By 2020 there is documented evidence this has become accepted thinking in UK foreign policy. Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee published its ‘five strategic narratives through which the UK can make a global contribution’ [E.8].

HMG’s actions to achieve narrative influence: In line with O’Loughlin’s finding that audience reception must be understood, HMG ‘agrees with the Committee’s recommendation to urge all concerned to gain a much deeper understanding of how others see the UK’ [E.2]. It presented policies that avoided ‘a UK-centric vision’ [E.2]. To his finding that instances of observable immediate influence in international affairs are rare, HMG ‘agrees with the Committee’s recommendation that there should not be an overemphasis on immediate returns on soft power investment, as many of the benefits may be longer term’ [E.2]. On that basis – again reflecting O’Loughlin’s conceptualisation – HMG committed to increase funding for the Chevening Scholarship Programme from 2015 to 2016 [E.2]. Regarding O’Loughlin’s findings on conducting digital engagement and thinking of communication in which media are treated as an ecology, HMG ‘agrees with the Committee’s [and thus O’Loughlin’s] recommendation on the need for diplomats to receive training in … the power of social media and be competent in its use’, and, concretely, ‘skills training will also be included in the material offered by the Diplomatic Academy … which will be open formally in early 2015’ [E.2].

The current [text removed for publication] at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office has confirmed that further government spending commitments reflected advice in O’Loughlin’s Soft Power report [E.3]. His testimony states, [text removed for publication]. This testimony also signalled the report’s soft power recommendations still inform policy in 2020, stating [text removed for publication] [E.3].

HMG’s 2014 response enabled O’Loughlin to directly guide a UK public sector organisation, the British Council, in enacting these reforms. HMG’s response stated, ‘To further enable UK arts and cultural activity overseas to achieve lasting impact and value, the British Council is developing a forward-looking framework to capture and promote major UK cultural and arts seasons and ‘years of culture’ with key countries all around the world’ (p24) [E.5]. O’Loughlin, with Gillespie (The Open University), developed regular relations with the British Council in 2015 to receive funding from the British Council to evaluate their #ShakespeareLives 2016 global campaign of events, competitions and other activities to celebrate 400 years since Shakespeare’s death.

The British Council’s [text removed for publication] Programme, Policy and External Relations, testified that for her organisation the report was [text removed for publication] [E.6]. Internally, she described how they used the report to help prepare their within-government case for funding for cultural relations and to explain to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) how the British Council contributes [text removed for publication] in the longer term. The report also helped them [text removed for publication]. The effect of this was to start [text removed for publication], she writes.

The Cultural Value project involved O’Loughlin and Gillespie implementing qualitative alongside the usual quantitative methods used by the British Council and Goethe Institute to understand their audiences-cum-users. They conducted this research in Ukraine and Egypt. The research influenced how the British Council and Goethe Institute construct evaluation of their cultural relations programmes [E.4, E.5, E.6]. The British Council include this framework in their Arts Evaluation Toolkit [E.7]. This evidences how O’Loughlin’s research with Gillespie altered how the British Council and Goethe Institute conceptualise influence and their willingness to use qualitative methods to identify what audiences understand by cultural ‘value’, in line with O’Loughlin’s research findings. The British Council’s [text removed for publication] adds that this improves performance because they are better able to understand how and why the goals of their stakeholders differ and how then to seek alignment and shared understanding [E.7].

These relationships bring sustained engagement that will generate further impact [E.3]. The British Council is committed to these approaches as of late 2020 [E.7]. The 2019 Thinker in Residence position in Brussels [E.9] has brought ongoing dialogue about an impact-focused event. O’Loughlin will attend COP26 in Glasgow in November 2021 to evaluate the UK’s strategic narrative on climate change for the UK government, with the permission of COP26 CEO Peter Hill and working with the Cabinet Office. These relations in the UK and abroad are institutionalised and will continue.

Research undertaken by Heath and Sloam at Royal Holloway has (i) co-produced new knowledge with NGOs over a sustained period of time and redirected NGO activities that (ii) transformed public and civil society debate and reordered the formal political agenda so that it pays more attention to the concerns of working class people, those on low incomes and young people, (iii) through these new debates and NGO activities, affected political actors so that they pay more attention to the concerns of people on low incomes and young people, and (iv) in two instances influenced significant policy change: the GLA introducing major new initiatives to enhance the youth voice in the Mayor’s Young Londoners Fund [GBP45,000,000 funding 200 projects across London] and the Conservatives lifting the benefit freeze before the 2019 General Election, directly affecting 500,000 people at risk of being driven into poverty.

1. Co-Production of new applied knowledge - and redirection of NGOs’ activities.

A key impact of this research has been the co-production, with NGOs, of new applied knowledge leading to a re-direction of organisational focus and strategic priorities within social change organisations. As a leading expert on socioeconomic inequalities and political participation, Heath’s sustained relationship with the JRF started with an invitation to join the JRF Advisory board in 2016; and developed over time, culminating with his work underpinning the launch of an influential new JRF campaign in 2019. This campaign increased political interest in people on low incomes and at risk of poverty, and highlighted the issues that they cared about in order to encourage parties to reconnect with them [E.2]. Prior to this campaign, there was no non-partisan movement for people in poverty to articulate their needs and interests on the national stage, resulting in political parties claiming to speak for them. JRF were keen to address this mis-representation [E.2]. Heath produced five original research reports for the JRF which provided a new evidential base for the political attitudes and voting behaviour of people on low incomes [E.1], published after the 2016 EU Referendum, the 2017 GE (including a separate report on Scotland), and before and after the 2019 GE. The JRF Executive Director states: these reports have ‘been completely central to the campaign’ to make a significant public intervention by JRF to persuade the UK political parties to focus on voters on a low income and the policies that would make a difference to their lives [E.2]. And ‘the fact that JRF was able to engage senior politicians and commentators in this as a field…needed really high-quality research to add something new into the debate [E.2].

Similarly, working with NGOs Sloam has directly shaped the practices and priorities of youth-centred organisations to foster youth engagement in politics. He has written reports for the United Nations (World Youth Report 2017) and the Intergenerational Foundation (also serving on the advisory board since 2010) and co-produced research with BitetheBallot (who nominated him as a research fellow for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Democratic Participation, on which he served (2015 to 2019). Sloam led the BitetheBallot Voter Advice Application (VAA) steering group, and his research played an essential part in the development of a VAA (with the think-tank, Demos) used by over [text removed for publication] of those between the ages of 18 and 25) in the run-up to the 2015 General Election. His research also underpinned the development of a BitetheBallot App to gamify key sustainability-related issues to better develop young Londoners’ understanding of these issues, which attracted approximately [text removed for publication] (young) users in the Greater London area in 2019 [E.8]. Sloam’s work also empowered young people in a new GLA project through the development of ideas for peer networks amongst young Londoners (e.g. through youth mayors) and participatory research (using young people as researchers). Sloam’s sustained interaction with the GLA, keynotes to policy makers and meetings with the Peer Outreach team, led to the development of a youth-led methodology (including in-depth interviews and deliberative focus groups) run by young people with fellow young Londoners from deprived backgrounds, and captured the diversity of youth opinion through a bespoke n=2,002 survey of 16 to 24 year olds (no such large-scale survey of youth opinion had been previously carried out in the capital). The [text removed for publication].”[E.6]

1. Changing public, civil society, and political debate to give more attention to low participation groups

Heath and Sloam’s research has made a significant contribution to the national conversation, pushing the issues facing people on low incomes and young people further up public and political agendas. Research on youth political engagement [R4] played a central role in the ‘youthquake’ debate after the 2017 UK election. The [text removed for publication] of the Intergenerational Foundation described the research as [text removed for publication] [E.3]. Research into working class representation [R1, R3] and the under-representation of working class MPs was reported in The Guardian [circulation: 127,000], the New Statesmen [c. 37,000] and discussed on BBC Radio 4 – media fora that connected with politicians and provoked political debate. The senior Labour MP Angela Rayner MP responded by saying “people will get more and more angry at the price of democracy that they see doesn’t affect them.” A Parliament full of "solicitors, barristers" will appear "an exclusive club" [E4]. With Jonathan Ashworth MP stating that Labour need to do more to connect with voters: “the Labour party needs to increase its efforts to find candidates who come from the communities we want to represent. That is more working-class, female and more black and ethnic minority candidates [E.4]”. The co-produced reports with the JRF were referenced over 300 times in the media [E.4], including in outlets such as the BBC [online readership 438,000,000 per week] , Sky, The Sun [circulation 1,200,000 million] , The Daily Mail [c. 1,100,000 million] , The Daily Telegraph [c. 360,000] , The Daily Mirror [c. 509,000] and The Daily Express [c. 290,000] [5.2] and informed journalists’ coverage of the 2019 election. The political columnist at The Times [c. 360,000] used the research to make the case that ‘low income voters will decide the next election’ and that the ‘Tory message must move beyond Brexit’ [E.9].

4.3 Changing the political agenda to increase attention to the concerns of people on low incomes and young people

Through these pathways, Heath and Sloam’s research has made a significant contribution to high level policy debate and pushed the political inclusion of people on low incomes and young people up the political agenda. In the run up to the 2019 General Election, JRF used Heath’s findings in a number of activities to campaign for policy change [E.2]. These included fringe events on ‘low income voters’ at party conferences in 2017, 2018 and 2019 (with ConHome and Labour List), along with private briefings for senior Conservative politicians and advisers including those drafting the 2019 manifesto, a briefing for centre-right journalists and thinkers to disseminate the findings, and a briefing for Labour MPs in parliament on the research findings [E.2]. The JRF conclude that this messaging was successful and that there was ‘more attention during the 2019 GE campaign on the topic of low-income voters’ and that without the JRF’s intervention party targeting of voters ‘could have been to the exclusion of people on a low income’ [E.2]. Heath also gave briefings to Scottish Labour MPs in Westminster in 2017, Labour MPs in Westminster in 2019, and Keir Starmer’s leadership team on zoom in 2020. A senior Labour MP said [text removed for publication] [E.5]. Heath’s research was also cited in the Labour Together 2019 Election Review, reflecting on the causes of their defeat.

The group have also influenced youth engagement strategies. Sloam’s research report for the Intergenerational Foundation was presented to a cross-party group of MPs in Westminster. This led Conservative MP Ben Bradley (then, Conservative Party vice-chair with responsibility for youth policy) to declare that the Conservatives had a lot of work to do in their appeal to young people. Sloam’s research was also [text removed for publication] [E.8]. Sloam’s youth-centred research has also transformed policy debate and practitioner behaviour in the GLA. According to the [text removed for publication], the research played a ‘central role’ in putting youth voice on the political agenda and ‘convinced’ the GLA to offer youth-oriented solutions to pressing sustainability policy challenges [E.6]. This directly resulted in the production of a youth engagement Handbook for GLA policy-makers [E.6]. The Handbook provides a detailed training manual on how to integrate young people’s views into the policy-making process so that their participation is not tokenistic. In citing the importance and influence of this work, senior policy makers from the GLA note [text removed for publication] [E.6]. Sloam’s research is also shaping the GLA’s response to the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic. In June 2020 and October 2020, he delivered keynote addresses to audiences of approximately 100 policy-makers in the GLA. Senior policy makers in the GLA said: [text removed for publication] [E.6].

4.4 Changing government priorities and policies towards people on low incomes and young people

Heath and Sloam’s research changed government policy. Sloam’s research has made a significant difference to policies that affect young Londoners lives; empowering them in the decision making process by enhancing youth voice in the Mayor’s Young Londoners Fund. Sloam’s 2019 research project with the GLA led directly to the invitation of young Londoners to City Hall to shape the priorities for the Young Londoners Fund and discuss what they felt was missing in the youth sector (using the same deliberative methods from Sloam’s project). The Peer Outreach Team, then, invited 15 young Londoners from youth organisations to help evaluate proposals. Based on Sloam’s policy briefings the GLA adopted Sloam’s recommendations for improving youth voice amongst young Londoners more generally. The cornerstone of these changes is the use of young people in the co-production of policy-making in ‘a collaborative work plan’ to ensure that the fund is ‘youth centred’. This involved setting up discussion networks of young Londoners to evaluate proposals and projects co-ordinated by the Peer Outreach Team (supported by the Handbook referred to above) [E.6]. As a result of this work, Sloam is collaborating with the OECD on a new international project to enhance youth voice in government decision making more widely [E.7].

JRF Executive Director says that Heath’s research has ‘been absolutely central’ to one of their most successful ever policy interventions [to lift the freeze on welfare benefits] and that they feel that it is a reasonable claim that the research contributed to party positioning and policy impact [E.2]. The JRF took a leading role in the campaign to lift the benefits freeze and was cited in 49 different debates on the topic in the House of Commons and House of Lords [E.10]. Labour MP Margaret Greenwood MP said “The benefit freeze increases poverty. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the freeze is set to drive almost 500,000 more people into poverty by 2020” [E.10]. The JRF had well-established relationships with senior Conservative politicians; what they lacked was the high-quality research - and a campaigning message - to add something new into the debate [E.2]. The low-income voter briefings based on Heath’s reports that JRF carried out in October 2019 was the critical opportunity to raise the issue with politicians in a position to act. On 3 November the government announced to the Sunday media that it would be lifting the benefit freeze [E.2]. According to the JRF Executive Director, here was ‘a positive indication that we can use curated research and engagement to highlight the action that would make a difference now, and to see action, that makes a difference to people on low incomes’ [E.2]. This line of impact is ongoing and the political value of the research is evident in JRF’s most recent ‘Keep the Lifeline campaign’, which argues for a permanent extension of the increases to Universal Credit brought in as a response to Covid, with early indications being that the Government is now actively considering the move in response to pressure from MPs that JRF cultivated by referring back to Heath’s research [E.9].