Policy Briefs 1

Professor Heidi Tworek and Kshitij (KJ) Sharan will lead an 80-minute hybrid workshop on policy briefs and their use in policy communications and advocacy. Policy briefs are one of the most commonly used documents in the policy ecosystem and are often a part of interview processes for policy jobs. We will discuss how to create effective, inclusive, and powerful policy briefs. 

Topics will include:

• Purpose of policy briefs
• Understanding your audience
• Finding the right structure
• Formatting and design
• Writing tips

Workshops in this series, click here for more information on this series. Participants will benefit from attending multiple workshops in the series, but they can choose to attend only those that best fit their interests and availability.

• Sept 25: Intro to Policy Communication (Click for handout and additional resources, under the "resources" section)
• Oct 30: Op-eds for Policy
• Nov 10: Policy Reports

Facilitators

Dr. Heidi Tworek is a Canada Research Chair and associate professor of international history and public policy at UBC. Her work examines history and policy around communications, particularly the effects of new media technologies on democracy. She is a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation as well as a non-resident fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. She co-edits the Journal of Global History.
Alongside writing policy reports on topics including Covid-19 communications and online harassment, Heidi has briefed or advised officials and policymakers from governments around the world on media, democracy, and the digital economy. Her writing has been published and featured in major magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Politico, The Globe & Mail, Süddeutsche Zeitung, The Financial Times, CNN, and many others. She also writes a monthly column for the Centre for International Governance Innovation. ​Heidi’s interest in democracy was spurred by writing her prize-winning book, News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900-1945 (Harvard University Press, 2019). Alongside co-editing four volumes, Heidi has published or has forthcoming over 45 book chapters and journal articles on media and communications, global history, and health. She is currently working on several projects, including global platform governance, the history and policy of health communications, and an edited volume on the interwar world. Her research has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada Foundation for Innovation, Genome Canada, the United Nations Foundation, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and Harvard University. She received her BA (Hons) in Modern and Medieval Languages with a double first from Cambridge University and earned her MA and PhD in History from Harvard University. Heidi has held visiting fellowships at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, the Transatlantic Academy in Washington DC, Birkbeck, University of London, and the Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam, Germany. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.Visit Heidi’s website for more information or follow her on Twitter @HeidiTworek.

Kshitij Sharan is the Head of Strategy and Operations at the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions (CSDI) at UBC. He has a Masters in Public Policy and Global Affairs from UBC and a BA in Economics and Political Science from McGill University. His work has ranged across sectors of education, water and sanitation, menstrual hygiene, gender equity, child protection and social entrepreneurship. He has been a founding member of medium to large scale non-profits and social enterprises in India, which has allowed him to engage deeply with decision-makers including ministers, parliamentarians, CEOs and communities. He was a founding member of one of India’s largest digital advocacy organizations, Global Citizen India, which uses the collective voice of the youth to hold decision-makers accountable and accelerate the achievement of the SDGs. Kshitij has also managed a political campaign during the 2019 Indian National Election and led strategy for an anti-trafficking organization in India. He is a Khemka Fellow, a StartingBloc School of Social Innovation Fellow and a Fellow at the Global Social Change Leadership Institute at the Wagner School of Public Service, New York University. For more, see https://www.linkedin.com/in/kshitij-sharan-229ab9104/