Centre for Policy Innovation

The Centre for Policy Innovation (CPI) is a new ANU centre for research, outreach and teaching on policy innovation.

CPI is located within the Research School of Social Sciences (RSSS) in the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences (CASS) from where it will seek to develop extensive cross-campus links as part of its multi-disciplinary focus.

The new Chair of Policy Innovation, Prof Adam Graycar, will be in post early in 2010. The Centre’s co-director for Policy Engagement, Dr Mark Matthews, is already in post. This dual management structure aims to facilitate a balance between the development of the Centre’s academic work and the development of extensive and effective collaborative relationships with stakeholders in the public sector and in civil society.

The multi-disciplinary Centre’s activities will cover the following dimensions of policy innovation:

• Evidence based innovation in the public sector;
• Innovation in science, technology and research funding instruments;
• Innovation and international engagement;
• Wider social, cultural and political issues in innovation;
• The role of civil society in policy innovation;
• Understanding creativity in innovation.

These initial themes will evolve as the Centre develops.

CPI integrates the following existing RSSS units and activities:

• The Research Evaluation and Policy Project (REPP) which concentrates on bibliometric analysis and is currently the leading unit of this type in Australia. Integrating REPP into the new Centre allows the unit to develop a more strategic approach with stronger synergies with other aspects of research and innovation policy.
  repp.anu.edu.au
• The Forum for European-Australian Science and Technology cooperation (FEAST) which concentrates on policy and practical aspects of engagement with Europe in research and innovation.
  
www.feast.org
• The Research and Innovation Policy Project (RIPP) also located within RSSS, which is a new model for policy shaping initiatives that can be configured to allow the ANU to engage with government reviews as and when necessary.
  
repp.anu.edu.au/ripp

CPI will engage with stakeholders in government and civil society (NGOs etc) via a series of ‘Actions’. These Actions, which are based upon a model developed in Europe (the COST Actions run by the European Science Foundation), draw together and exploit the synergies between existing policy-related research projects.

CPI Actions are designed to make it easier to translate discipline-based academic research into practice-oriented information, practical guidance and recommendations. In some cases, CPI Actions will focus on building new areas of policy related research in order fill gaps in current research efforts.

CPI has two Actions underway at present:

• CPI Action 1: Developing a Better Practice Guide on Public Sector Innovation for the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO). This Action is being achieved by working jointly with the public policy specialist Grahame Cook Consulting Pty Ltd and ANAO officials.
• CPI Action 2: Developing and governing international science and innovation initiatives addressing major global challenges. This Action involves collaboration with CSIRO’s Government and International Relations team (via Paul Harris — a CPI Visiting Fellow during 2009).

Current Visiting Fellows in CPI:

• Mr Paul Harris, Head of CSIRO Government and International Relations (until the end of 2009).

For further details contact Dr Mark Matthews at Mark.Matthews@anu.edu.au.