Showcasing the Policy Quest at UPEN 2025 Annual Conference

Last week, the Institute attended the annual University Policy Engagement Network (UPEN) conference to introduce our new Policy Quest board game and demonstrate how it can be used to create engaging, creative and effective policy impact campaigns.

This was the first time an external audience had seen the game, which was originally conceptualised by Dr Hanne Wagner and developed further by the Institute for Policy and Engagement team in collaboration with the University of Nottingham’s School of Computer Science. 

Presenting the game to those working directly at the intersection of research and policy offered the ideal setting for its debut.

We often hear that academics want to engage with policy but don’t know where to start or how to make their work relevant in that space. Policy Quest was developed in response to that need, to offer a structured yet flexible environment where researchers can explore policy engagement in a hands-on way.

What is the Policy Quest?

The original concept began as part of a Capabilities in Academic Policy Engagement (CAPE) funded project. First introduced as policy cards this tool was designed to help academics think creatively about how to engage policy makers with their research. Over the past two years, these cards have evolved from policy cards into policy quest – a fully-fledged board game designed to guide academics through the development of a targeted policy campaign and impact plan.

To test this fantastic tool, participants, also known as players, are guided step by step through the process of developing a policy campaign using the interactive board game. This includes clarifying their campaign ideas and aims, aligning them with current policy objectives, identifying the appropriate policy level and audience, mapping stakeholders, managing resources, and selecting relevant materials and activities. Once a campaign has been designed, other players introduce realistic challenges to test its strength and adaptability. The outcome is a structured campaign plan with the foundations of an impact strategy, ready to support funding bids, pitches or evaluation efforts.

What makes the game powerful is that it allows participants to test their thinking, receive peer feedback, and surface challenges early on. It is not only about simplifying complex processes, but also about making them more navigable. We are excited by the potential this tool has to support a shift towards more proactive, reflective, and strategic approaches to impact planning, especially at a time when universities are looking to embed evaluation from the outset.

Why now and what’s next?

The UPEN conference 2025 focused on evaluation and impact in academic-policy engagement – a timely theme with preparations for REF2029 already underway across the sector. With institutions spending around £3 million per REF cycle and £7,400 per case study, planning for impact early is more important than ever. Yet many academics struggle to prioritise impact planning at the start of a project, especially when it comes to policy engagement, which is notoriously difficult to evidence and monitor.

The policy quest provides a structured but flexible and enjoyable space for researchers to build a robust policy campaign, think through their impact goals and create a record of key milestones. It supports more proactive and sustainable engagement with policy makers and helps integrate evaluation tools from the outset.

The UPEN conference was the ideal venue to share this resource with over 100 professionals working across the evidence-policy interface. We are grateful to the organisers for the opportunity and pleased to hear how helpful participants found the game, including seasoned policy professionals.