Having developed your messages, you need to plan how to practically achieve your advocacy objectives in order to mediate and negotiate the discussion to the point where your target audiences own the research ideas and are ready to act on them. This will be achieved through the purposeful development of a range of advocacy activities and a set of communication tools. For policy researchers, this is normally a combination of releasing papers or articles and opportunities to present and discuss them with stakeholders, potential coalition partners, and decisionmakers through, for example, individual briefings and lobbying, organizing meetings and conferences, making presentations, and media events.
For the sake of clarity, we divide the discussion and take on the selection of advocacy activities first and then consider the choice of supporting communication tools.
Plan for multiple activities over time to move your target audiences to the point of ownership, ready to act upon your ideas.