Our annual Centre for Education & Policy Analysis (CEPA) policy brief competition illustrates the impactful, policy-relevant research undertaken by our postgraduate students. Writing a policy brief can help build an audience for your research and identify potential research partners. Depending on the stage of the research, the brief can identify a research need or identify policy implications arising from research.
As shown in our winning entries, policy briefs can be addressed to education and/or social policy makers or to broader communities affected by current policies. Entries took various forms (text, video and posters).
Prize winner: Savandie Abayratna (PhD student – Vice Chancellor’s Scholarship) outlined the policy reforms needed to enhance protections for Sri Lankan Migrant domestic workers. She has implemented one of her policy recommendations in the form of a small social enterprise project providing secure livelihoods for women with care responsibilities in her village.
The CEPA competition prize (£300) equates to the wages for the 16 women employed in the project for two weeks and will bring additional resource to keep the project moving. View the policy brief on YouTube here.
Runner up: Bethany Stewart (MA Education & SEN student and English teacher at Meols Cop High School) examines the limitations of the current e-safety policy framework for schools and argues for a policy reorientation towards media literacy. read Read Bethany’s brief: Improving E-Safety Education Proposing a Move Toward Media Literacy.
Runner up: Morgan Yaguda (MA Education student) makes the policy case for compulsory English as an Additional Language training in schools. Read Morgan’s brief: Compulsory EAL Training for Teachers in England.
The judging panel were impressed by the authors’ ability to convey messages clearly to a target audience with effective use of evidence. The winning entries will be published in the Hope University educational research journal, Research in Action, which reaches out to a wide range of education stakeholders.