Geography and public policy: taking responsibility in research and teaching

ABSTRACT

In this short intervention I ask whether geographers are helping or hindering progress towards a policy turn. The inclination for turning to research means the largely unspoken aspect of the geography and public policy debate is our role as educators. While research-informed teaching is the fundamental mechanism by which academic staff engage students with public policy concerns, I highlight how the foundational books used in many undergraduate degree programmes to frame ‘doing’ geographical research provide no reference to policy. I argue as geographers we must take more responsibility for exposing students to a diversity of policy in geographical learning and teaching.

KEYWORDS:

• Geography
• public policy
• pedagogy
• teaching
• research

Introduction: helping or hindering progress?

This is not the first-time geographers have agonized over Geography’s relationship with public policy (see, most notably, the debates prompted by Coppock (1974) and Peck (1999) in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers; Martin (2001) in Progress in Human Geography). In this short intervention, I seek to bring three aspects of these debates into sharper focus.

Firstly, are geographers helping or hindering progress towards Martin’s (2001) vision of a ‘policy turn’ in geography¹? This is the most fundamental question to ask in every aspect of these debates because, as noted over nearly 50 years of debate, when it comes to engaging public policy ‘the remedy is largely in our hands’ (Coppock, 1974, p. 2) and ‘geographers have to take responsibility for the choices they make’ (Boyle et al., 2020, p. 99).

Taking responsibility for our own actions leads to the second aspect, best illustrated in the following quote:

 … academics in universities may perhaps have their greatest impact through their teaching rather than publication. But, turning to research … . (Dorling & Shaw, 2002, p. 638)

For the most part, the relationship between geography and public policy has been assumed to be about geographical research and not geographical teaching. Despite Dorling and Shaw’s own admission, the immediate inclination is to turn to research. If geographers are serious about taking responsibility for geography and policy, then surely the role of academics as educators must be considered on an equal footing with our role as researchers? This will require geography academics to recognize students are our ‘first public’, knowing that every year, following their graduation, thousands of new graduates ‘carry geography into all walks of life’ (Ward, 2006, p. 500). On this basis, Banfield et al. (2022) are right to argue that we urgently need a ‘pedagogical policy turn’ in geography.

The third aspect takes Boyle et al.’s (2020, p. 93) concern with ‘where, when, why, and how’ geographers (should) engage public policy concerns to argue we should include a fifth interrogative word: who. In part, this acknowledges what is already present in debates – notably, who in geography is, and who should, contributing to policy work on the one hand, and then on the other hand, who geographers are, and should be, engaging with? But I also want to extend the ‘who’ question to consider the implications of disciplinary panel membership and who (and what) as educators we expose students to when we introduce geography and what doing geography involves.

Introducing geographical research – Wherefore art thou policy?

It is the norm in higher education² to promote the mantra of research-informed teaching. This is the very essence of a university degree, so perhaps we all too readily assume that a research context in which impact agendas, public engagement and policy relevance are increasing to the fore will percolate into our curricula? Most people, I suspect, would see this as a fair assumption. You only need to look through the pages of journals in which geographical research is being published to see the multiple and diverse ways in which ‘geography’ and ‘public policy’ intersect. This is what we teach. It is also what our students read. But herein lies my concern. I cannot help feeling that geographical research has made strides with who is engaging public policy concerns. It is still the case that the research side of the discipline has an uneasy and uneven relationship with policy impact, however, the neoliberalization of higher education has ensured most academics are engaged. In the UK, engagement has been necessitated and incentivised through the institutionalization of policy and impact in higher education: non-charity funders requiring applicants to demonstrate direct ‘pathways to impact’, metrics for evaluating impact, recognition in academic workload and promotion criteria, and so on.

All of this is leading to a much greater awareness of who is benefiting from geographical research and how this is being achieved. But my worry is what I see as a fundamental disconnect at the heart of the research-teaching nexus in Geography today. For example, in the UK context, the current state of geographical research is assessed periodically through the Research Excellence Framework (REF). In the last assessment (REF 2014), the following statement summarized the current state of (human) geographical research and how it engages public policy concerns:

‘The outputs showed UK human geography confronting “grand challenges”, producing research which addressed the most pressing issues … this research was asking difficult questions and providing convincing answers, across global, national, regional and local scales.’ Sub-panel 17: Geography, Environmental Studies and Archaeology (REF2014, 2015, p. 35)

Now compare this with the 22-page Subject Benchmark Statement for Geography. This defines the academic standards that can be expected of a UK Geography graduate, in terms of what they might know, do and understand at the completion of their studies, and describes the nature of the subject:

Geographers are aware of the importance of spatial dimensions in broader debates and issues involving policy. (QAA, 2019)

Striking for me is the different emphasis placed on the relationship between Geography and public policy in research (where geographers provide ‘convincing answers’ to grand challenges) when compared to teaching (where geographers are ‘aware’ of issues involving policy). And this is where I want to pick up on the interrogative question of ‘who’ to ask whether, as geographers, we are helping ourselves?

The composition of both the UK REF and QAA panels is perhaps illustrative of how Geography and public policy is being considered in the different spheres of research and teaching. While the REF sub-panel was formed of 10 non-academic members (including representatives of the UK Government, Scottish Government and Overseas Development Institute) the QAA review group comprised 17 members of which only one was a non-academic (an employer representative for geospatial data services that promote mapping and surveying). This is not to criticize either membership group; rather, it is to highlight how the ‘who’ can have some important consequences for the introspection and anxiety Geography and geographers clearly have when it comes to engaging public policy concerns. Surely only having ‘awareness’ significantly undersells the policy engagement Geography graduates have as part of their degree programmes? After all, if ‘pedagogy surely is the disciplines greatest claim to impact’ (Banfield et al., 2022, p. 163), then the question must be why, as geographers, we are not always taking responsibility for making that case. Maybe the answer, or part of it, lies in interrogating the ‘who’ as much as the what, where, when and how of policy engagement (cf. Boyle et al., 2020)?

More fundamental, I would argue, is the issue of what we expose our students to. I am not speaking here about the research-informed teaching that exists, but what we direct students to when introducing them to geographical research. For illustrative purposes, let us consider two foundational books on the theory and practice of geography that are used in many undergraduate degree programmes to frame the doing of geographical research: Key Concepts in Geography (Clifford et al., 2008) and Key Methods in Geography (Clifford et al., 2016). On the question of geography and public policy, Key Concepts in Geography offers some passing acknowledgement of policy but mostly within the context of ideology, theory, discourse and narrative. It is a similar story for Key Methods in Geography, where, in over 700 pages, there is only a handful of brief mentions – one in relation to environmental models and audits of environmental policies, another on archives being useful for knowing what the relevant policies were at a specific time in history, and a single mention that geographers’ ability to analyse spatial data can help influence public policy.

My question is thus: if Geography is confronting ‘grand challenges’, producing research that addresses the most pressing issues, and asking the difficult questions and providing convincing answers across global, national, regional and local scales, then why do we shy away from it when introducing what geographical research is (for) to our students and others who are maybe engaging with our discipline for the first time? Are the claims simply boosterist bluster, a case of rhetoric running far ahead of reality? To some extent, probably, given the REF is not simply an internal assessment of UK Geography units but has an external facing component which positions Geography relative to other disciplinary areas simultaneously going through the same assessment exercise and includes summary statements documenting the current state and health of the discipline. But there is more to it than this. This is too simple an explanation and one which decrees no action from academic staff. It is an easy out and does not speak to how we, as geographers, need to take responsibility. Let me put it another way, by playing devil’s advocate for a moment: if a student, policymaker or academic from another discipline came to our introductory disciplinary texts to see what geographers have to offer public policy, what would they take away? The answer, I fear, is nothing. My point here is that we are missing a trick, one that goes beyond a narrow selection of texts used here for illustrative purposes. In the Anglophone world, most introductory texts to human geography refer in passing to our engagement with public policy (most often in the form of critiques of the policies themselves) and not geographers and their informed work actively influencing or shaping public policy concerns.

This matters because pedagogy is a fundamental mechanism by which academics engage with public policy concerns. Whether academics have their ‘greatest impact’ through teaching is neither here nor there, what matters is that there is impact, and we all too often neglect this by turning to research in debates surrounding geography and public policy. Geography and policy is as much about teaching as it is about research. No one is suggesting the path to achieving this is straightforward. As Banfield et al. (2022) reveal, there are definitional, institutional and structural obstacles to achieving a pedagogical policy turn in geography. This includes an increasing disconnect between those doing impactful research and those delivering the teaching programme. Generators of significant impact from their research are often bought-out from some, or all, teaching to create the requisite hours for them to conduct impactful research. This limits the encounters between students and those staff conducting the most impactful policy research. Furthermore, it narrows what students are exposed to by not reflecting the full diversity of policy engagements and practices that geographers are involved in. Yes, some of these challenges extend far beyond geography. Yes, some of the obstacles to be overcome are not easy. But in this short intervention, I am arguing that there are compelling arguments why public policy needs to be on the geography learning and teaching agenda. There are things we can do to make progress, if only we take responsibility for our actions. This starts by resisting the inclination to always turn to research when debating geography and public policy.

On this, I leave you with one final thought. In our geography textbooks, authors and editors have been quick to highlight key concepts (Clifford et al., 2008), key methods (Clifford et al., 2016), key texts (Hubbard et al., 2008), and key thinkers (Hubbard & Kitchin, 2010). Are we missing a trick by not having ‘Key influences on public policy’ (or society, or people and places, more generally)?³ In short, rather than debating ‘Geography and public policy’ why have we not been writing/editing the book that has that very title? Now there’s a thought … and another ‘who’ question: who is going to step forward and take responsibility for doing this?

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John Harrison

John Harrison is a human geographer at Loughborough University, UK. Alongside publishing extensively in urban and regional geography, he has held various departmental roles, including Undergraduate Programme Director and Research & Impact Director, which have informed this short intervention.

Notes

1 It should be noted that there is some debate over whether this would actually be a good thing.

2 My positionality is reflected in the predominant focus of this article, which is drawing on 15 years working as an academic (engaging with, but not shaping, public policy concerns) within UK higher education. While many of the points made in the paper, I believe, have resonance beyond the UK, the illustrative nature of the examples does reflect a narrow UK-focus. This tension is evident in the books themselves, which are all edited from the UK, Ireland and US, but with a wider readership beyond Geography programmes in these countries. In writing this contribution, it is all the more clear why there is urgent need to decolonise geographical debate and knowledge production.

3 In the UK, the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) has taken to promoting the advocacy and impact work resulting from geographical research https://www.rgs.org/geography/advocacy-and-impact/ including a selection of individual case studies showcasing (policy) impact https://www.rgs.org/geography/advocacy-and-impact/impact/