Transfer for Transformation: How Not to Bridge the Gap between Academia and Policy

This roundtable is a reflection on academic exchange with the policy world. Experts of international relations will discuss worst and best practices for publicly engaged scholarship. The panel will draw on highlights from the centenary special issue of International Affairs, a “how not to guide” for international relations. Initiated and co-edited by our President, Prof. Dr. Amrita Narlikar together with Prof. Dr. Daniel Drezner, this compendium brings together renowned international scholars, who review their field of expertise and share their experiences with the pitfalls of policy advice.

The event takes place in the framework of the GIGA project “Transfer for Transformation (T4T)”. Under the lead of Professor Amrita Narlikar, and funded by the Leibniz Competition, this application lab seeks to develop innovations in the practice of knowledge transfer through consequent target group integration and novel access strategies. It also contributes to scholarship on this subject by analysing the effectiveness and impact of different types of policy engagement.

Our partner for this exchange is Bridging the Gap, an initiative devoted to enhancing the policy impact of contemporary international affairs scholarship. It equips professors and doctoral students with the skills they need to produce influential policy-relevant research and theoretically grounded policy work. BTG promotes scholarly contributions to public debate and decision making on global challenges and U.S. foreign policy. Within the academy, it is driving changes in university culture and processes designed to incentivize public and policy engagement.

Speakers: Prof. Dr. Amrita Narlikar is the President of the GIGA, Professor of International Relations, and Honorary Fellow of Darwin College (University of Cambridge). She is also a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Adjunct Senior Fellow, Research in Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), and non-resident Distinguished Fellow of the Australia India Institute. She serves as Co-Chair to the G20 T20 Taskforce “LiFE, Resilience and Well-Being”.

Prof. Dr. James Goldgeier is a Professor of International Relations and served as Dean of the School of International Service at American University from 2011-17. He is a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University's Center on International Security and Cooperation and at the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution. He chairs the State Department Historical Advisory Committee and is a member of the Secretary of State's International Security Advisory Board.

Prof. Dr. Amitabh Mattoo is Professor of Disarmament studies at the Centre for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament (CIPOD), School of International Studies (Jawaharlal Nehru University). He is a member of the Academic Advisory Committee of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and an Honorary Professor at the Islamic University of Science and Technology, Avantipura, Jammu and Kashmir. He also is a Director of the India-Afghanistan Foundation.

Prof. Dr. Janice Stein is the Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management in the Department of Political Science and the Founding Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of Ontario.She is also an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Senior Fellow of the Kissinger Center at SAIS at Johns Hopkins University.

Moderator: Prof. Dr. Naazneen Barma is the founding Director of the Doug and Mary Scrivner Institute of Public Policy, Scrivner Chair of Public Policy, and Associate Professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. She is also one of the founders and a co-director of Bridging the Gap, an initiative devoted to enhancing the policy impact of contemporary international affairs scholarship.