DMU 'takes pride in its record of providing quality expert advice to Government'

De Montfort University has reported a busy year during 2024 in working with governments at a local, regional, national and even international level.

Expert advice has been offered in everything from hate crime to city centre economics and from cyber skills in education to plastic waste in Africa.

The work has been spearheaded and co-ordinated by DMU’s Policy Unit, which delivers expert advice and research to government officials, civil servants, and practitioners to help shape research questions, methodologies, and outputs to ensure real-world relevance.

The unit brings together diverse expertise from government departments, international organisations, academic networks, and civil society to tackle complex policy challenges that no single institution could address alone.

A Visiting Policy Fellows programme hosts civil servants and policy experts within the unit, while placing DMU researchers in government departments for hands-on policy experience.

Professor Mike Kagioglou, DMU Deputy Vice-Chancellor Planning, Research and Innovation, said he was proud of the university’s contribution during 2024 and said there was much more good work to come in the next 12 months.

He said: “This university prides itself on the quality of its research and the experts in their field who are able to offer advice to those at the top of government in this country.

“However, we also recognise the importance of work in our home city of Leicester and the responsibility we have regionally and internationally through our expertise”.

This has included the work of DMU’s Policy Unit offering expert advice to the UK Science and Technology Network, Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, UK Government Office for Science and Ministry of Defence.

Further examples of the work have included:

• DMU’s Jonathan Payne, a Professor of Work, Employment and Skills, gave evidence to Parliament’s Work and Pensions Committee and warned that a “perfect storm” of delayed and lost funding, fragmentation, and short-term contracts threatened the future of many third-sector organisations, many of which have closed down and have been forced to significantly reduce their services.
• Professor Payne along with colleagues Dr Peter Butler and Dr Jonathan Rose prepared a similar report on the fragile state of third sector employability providers for the Scottish government. The report showed funding reductions and problems with local authority have led to a decrease in employability funding in Scotland in recent years.
• Dr Ismini Vasileiou, Cyber Skills Lead at DMU, lead a conference involving MPs, policymakers, industry leaders, and education providers to address the need for improved tech skills in education. The conference in Westminster conference drew up a set of policy recommendations to improve the way cyber skills are taught and so strengthen the UK’s cyber resilience.
• In Leicester, Policy Engagement Symposium was formed to allow collaboration between DMU experts and Leicester City Council to help address pressing policy issues. The first seminar started the ball rolling for a plan to equip academics with the tools needed to help shape and inform public policy in Leicester and further afield.
• Also in Leicester, Professor Rachel Granger has been offering expert advice to Leicester’s Cultural Quarter and Leicester City Council, the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership on improving retail resilience in the city as well as on community innovation projects.
• Regionally, new hate crime research is being pioneering in a West Midlands project focussed on Walsall. Kim Sadique, Associate Professor in Community and Criminal Justice, and Nikki Bailey, Senior Lecturer in Criminal Justice and Policing, have been offering expert advice to Walsall Council, and West Midlands Police in the effort to reduce all forms of hate crime across the town.
• Internationally, two researchers from DMU have been working with governments of Namibia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, South Africa, and Namibia on cutting plastic waste pollution. The Garbage In Value Out (GIVO) project aims to show how plastic waste can be recycled into usable and valuable products.