There is a basic need to make a clear link between the focus of your message and the currently discussed policy problem and the current policy approach of the government, that is, to make the message policy-relevant. In fact, relevance can go beyond these two elements to where you may also need to address other issues such as the decision-making process, current thinking and positions, stakeholders, timing, resources, or capacity to really show how the research is properly situated in the current policy challenge and landscape.1
This challenge is summed up very nicely in the following quote:
“New knowledge is thus poured into a mould of prior understandings, which may not correspond to the researcher’s conceptions of a study.”2
The first line emphasizes the need to connect the research and findings to what is already known and to use the advocacy communication model to help target audiences to recognize, understand, and engage with your ideas and proposals. The second line points out that often research starts with assumptions or questions very different from those being asked in the current discussion of an issue. It is the job of the advocate to find a way to make strong connections across the research and policy narrative boundaries. The Macedonian case analyzed illustrates the need to cross this boundary:
Case 3: Macedonia
Introducing and passing a Patients’ Bill of Rights (2006–2008)
Policy fellow and think tank (Studiorum)
The Macedonian case shows a common challenge for researchers in bridging from the framing or agenda of an international organization to a national context. The introduction of a patients bill of rights was indirectly set as an accession precondition and on this basis, the researcher did a study on the state of patient rights in the Western Balkans, with a special focus on her own country, Macedonia.
At the beginning of the campaign there was a strong need to frame and relate the proposal or approach in the current health legislation, that is, that most of the issues covered in a patients´ bill of rights were already covered under different pieces of legislation, but this current proposal brought these issues together from the rights perspective of the end user. There was also a need to show that this added some rights or privileges for patients and to deliver on these would cost extra money. In addition, the advocate had to allay the fears of the medical societies representing doctors that this bill did not hugely change the relationship between doctor and patient with regard to negligence and insurance claims, but rather that it actually provides additional legal protection for doctors, as the healthcare institution in which they are providing healthcare services is put in the forefront of responsibility for negligence and insurance claims. Hence, the job of reframing and building relevance was a significant task at the beginning of this advocacy campaign.