School for Thinktankers for emerging or start-up think tanks

Module 4. Risks and opportunities

Guiding question

What could knock a small organisation off course, or open new doors: visibility, integrity, finances and the political context?

Before the live session

Work through this module before the session (about 50 minutes) and bring your real documents to the live session.

What we cover

  • Looking ahead: a small organisation cannot afford to get its research agenda wrong. If it puts everything on one issue and the issue fades, it becomes irrelevant. Scenario planning helps you anticipate change and decide where to place your bets.
  • Visibility: staying in the public debate without the budget for a large campaign: work on policy problems rather than research topics, plan a package of outputs, publish as you go and prioritise the few actions with the most impact.
  • Integrity and reputation: a small or new organisation cannot easily recover a damaged reputation. Be ready for the media agenda to try to set yours, and think through what happens if a large amount of money arrives. The integrity health check helps you keep your values and red lines under review.
  • Financial shocks: funding can arrive or disappear overnight, and the effect on a small organisation is far larger. Reserves, alliances and diversified income are the main buffers.
  • Difficult political contexts: in some contexts, a think tank that does well attracts actors who would rather it did not. Funding can be captured and space reduced. We look at what organisations can do before and when this happens.
  • Learning and adapting: tracking whether the organisation is growing in the direction you chose, and deciding where to invest next. MEL in proportion: two indicators, one learning meeting a quarter, a theory of change that fits on a page.

 

In this module

Reading 1. Build a think tank: How will it carry out research?

This section of the guide looks at how a think tank decides what to research so that its work stays relevant to policy: the principles of policy-relevant research, the difference between policy and research questions, what positions a think tank for influence, and how to build a research agenda. Read it with the looking-ahead part of the session in mind: what goes into your agenda, and what the trade-off is between a stable agenda and one that follows funders.

From Build a think tank: A guide for policy entrepreneurs (On Think Tanks), chapter The How? questions.

This reading includes the sections on policy relevance, positioning and research agendas.

How will you ensure that your research is policy relevant?

To be relevant to policy and practice, research needs to be embedded in its context. It needs to respond to existing problems and be recognised by the stakeholders involved. If a research piece is either too general or too specific, it might not be useful or find a space in the debate. Applied research, which is the sort that a think tank does, aims to find solutions to a problem and therefore needs to be timely. If not, it might miss the opportunity to inform policy (Ordoñez and Echt, 2016b).

To be policy relevant, research should follow these principles (Ordoñez and Echt, 2016b):

  • Be embedded in policy context.
  • Be internally and externally validated.
  • Respond to policy questions and objectives.
  • Be fit for purpose and timely.
  • Be crafted with an analytical and policy perspective.
  • Be open to change and innovation: as it interacts with policy spaces and policymakers.
  • Be realistic about institutional capacity and funding opportunities.

Box 37. Toolkit for Political Economy Analysis

This toolkit is intended to help development projects achieve the best quality analysis and strong results: WaterAid (2015), Political Economy Analysis Toolkit.

Box 38. Policy questions are not the same as research questions

Based on Mendizabal, E. (2013f), Research questions are not the same as policy questions.

An important task for think tankers is working with policymakers to define what it is that they want to know and what information they need. If they focus only on what they say they want, a researcher misses out on uncovering what information is needed. A key skill for a think tanker is to unravel, with their stakeholders, what important questions need to be asked.

Policy questions are bigger in scope than research questions. To answer a policy question, many research questions need to be asked. For example:

Policymaker X might ask… But researchers might first have to answer…
What skills needed to be developed to take advantage of the rise of new trading opportunities? Are we facing more competition from other neighbours than in the past?
What specific sectors are under stress?
Which sectors seemed to be emerging as future opportunities?
What effects had domestic and international policy changes on these?
Are our trade policy strategies and regulations ready to address future challenges and threats?

Think tanks’ comparative advantage lies, or should lie, in translating policy questions into research questions and research question answers into policy question answers. To do this they must behave as boundary workers: simultaneously working in the policy and academic communities (Mendizabal 2013f).

Positioning your think tank for policy influence

The Think Tank Initiative (TTI) supported policy research institutions across the developing world for 10 years. TTI learned that a think tank’s policy influence is shaped by many factors, but two of these are key:

  • A reputation as an independent organisation that provides credible research: Independence rests on organisational strengths, such as having financial sustainability.
  • The agility to navigate the local policy landscape and participate in policy debates: Engaging with policymakers early in the research cycle helps to ensure uptake, so the think tank has to be agile in responding to shifts in the environment and choosing the right points of entry. Think tanks can play a positive role engaging citizens, the media or advocates for marginalised groups directly in their research and in the policy process.

Therefore, achieving policy influence involves the entire organisation. The reputation for independence demands strengths across the think tank: effective leadership, financial sustainability, great researchers and administrators and the right skills in communications and networking.

Research agendas

A research agenda is ‘a guideline or framework that guides the direction of the research efforts of an individual and/or organisation. It helps individuals and organisations communicate what they are focusing on and their area of expertise, and it also helps focus their research efforts and articulate different initiatives into common goals’ (Ordoñez and Echt, 2016b). It is not about producing a document and letting it sit. Research agendas are alive and active and they should guide the research that an organisation carries out. Agendas should be policy relevant, and for that they need to respond to the context.

Box 39. Components of a research agenda

There is no one specific way to draft a research agenda; depending on their characteristics and aims think tanks give prominence to different aspects. But in general, the following sections are recommended:

  • Contextual justification
  • Research priorities
  • Conceptual or ideological approach (if it exists)
  • Partnerships
  • Funding sources

When starting out you do not need to draft a lengthy document that outlines your research agenda (you can leave that for later) but it is a good idea to think about it, as it will give direction and purpose to your think tank. Your agenda should link to your aims and relate to your business model and funding strategies, as it will be affected by them. A think tank with core funding is freer to pursue their own interests, while contract or consulting think tanks tend to be more demand led.

When developing your research agenda, you should bear in mind the issues that interest you and the issues that are relevant in the context in which you wish to operate, but also the potential funding sources. The risk of building your research agenda in this autonomous way is that the topics and frameworks may not be completely linked to relevant stakeholders such as policymakers. On the other hand, funding based on grants or projects means you’ll have to be more flexible and open to addressing new topics or abandon others as you may have to adapt your agenda to donors’ priorities. Therefore, there is a trade-off between a more stable but less dynamic research agenda and a more flexible albeit less coherent research programme focused on projects.

Reading 2. Understanding policy problems

This section of the background note on policy-relevant research offers a way to classify policy problems by how much stakeholders agree on values and how certain the available knowledge is. Table 2 shows what policy influence is realistic for each type of problem and what role research can play. Use it to place the two or three issues your organisation works on and decide where to place your bets.

From the School for Thinktankers background notes (On Think Tanks, 2025). Note 2: Policy-relevant research, section ‘Understanding policy problems’.

Types of policy problems

Hisschemöller and Hoppe (1995) offer a simple but powerful categorisation of policy problems (Table 1) in which two dimensions are used:

  • The relevant and available knowledge: whether or not there is certainty with regard to the knowledge available about the problem.
  • The norms and values at stake: whether or not there is agreement in relation to the values linked to the problem.

This classification refers to both a technical and a political (or cultural) perspective of policy problems. With these two categories in mind, four possible types of problems emerge:

  • Structured problems. These are well-defined issues which often require technical expertise. They involve a high degree of consensus and clear responsibility for their resolution. Examples include regulating health services and road maintenance.
  • Unstructured problems. These problems are the opposite of the former.4 They are complex, have no clear boundaries, and no specific actor responsible for solving them. There are conflicting values and knowledge that are part of an extensive debate. Examples include the consolidation or separation of states, negative impacts of new technologies, climate change, or complex democratic reform processes.
  • Moderately structured problems (knowledge certainty). In these problems, there’s a certain amount of confidence regarding the technical aspect of the problem. This means that there’s certainty in relation to the knowledge needed to understand the problem. But there’s no agreement on the values associated with the problem. These include issues such as sex education in public schools.
  • Moderately structured problems (value agreement). In these problems, there is consensus on the values, but no certainty about the knowledge or the technical aspects of the problem. An example of this type of problem is how to tackle the spread of HIV-AIDS or brain drain from a country. The general opinion is that these should be stopped, but there isn’t a clear understanding of why they occur or how to tackle them.
Table 1. Types of policy problems
Far from agreement on norms and values at stake Close to agreement on norms and values at stake
Far from certainty on relevant and available knowledge Unstructured problems Moderately structured problems (value agreement)
Close to certainty on relevant and available knowledge Moderately structured problems (knowledge certainty) Structured problems

Source: Hisschemöller and Hoppe (1995)

Research work will vary dramatically depending on the problem being tackled. Here are some important points to keep in mind:

  • Problems are not static. In the process of understanding problems through the lenses discussed above or other lenses, you should maintain a dynamic perspective. ‘Policy problems are social and political constructs’ (Hisschemöller and Hoppe, 1995). As such, they are in constant flux.
  • Decision-making involves structuring problems. For a policy to be seen as a ‘need’, the problem being faced must be structured. Often, policymakers want to know how to frame and understand a problem that would justify government intervention. This requires ensuring that the problem is communicated as clearly as possible.
  • Researchers tend to problematise an issue. Researchers tend to keep finding new sides or perspectives to an issue. While that’s helpful to understand how problems are multifaceted, it may result in paralysing decision and action. It’s important to be able to handle the tension between the need to ‘structure a problem’ and the need to keep an open perspective.

Reflecting on how problems are framed

Before generating alternative solutions to address policy problems, it’s good to reflect on how problems are framed and understood (and the degree of consensus between the think tank and others involved).

  • Whose perspective is the most important when it comes to a policy problem? The think tank’s perspective or that of other stakeholders (such as the private sector, NGOs or the government)?
  • How can the think tank balance these different perspectives?
  • Should the think tank prioritise the technical dimensions of a problem or the political dimensions?
  • Does the think tank consciously or unconsciously shy away from certain types of problems?

How to approach different policy problems

Abraham Maslow once said, ‘If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.’ If we apply this to the policy context, we can gather that different policy problems require different solutions and strategies. For each type of policy problem there are at least two key questions we can ask:

  • What can a think tank realistically expect to achieve or how does a think tank seek to influence policy?
  • And what is the role of research in this process?

The framework summarised in Table 2 presents a practical way of connecting a clear objective with the specific context and the type of research to carry out. There is a direct link between the type of problem, what is feasible to achieve in terms of policy influence, and how research can help. The framework given below is not meant to be prescriptive. While different aspects of it can be adapted, it’s important to understand the relationship between these three elements: problem– policy influence–research.

Table 2. Summary of the types of policy problems and implications for research
Structured Moderately structured problems (value agreement) Moderately structured problems (knowledge certainty) Unstructured
Description Stakeholders are ready to tackle the issue. Stakeholders share values, but there is a lack of certainty about knowledge. Stakeholders do not agree on their values or priorities. Discomfort with the status quo, but no agreement on where to start.
What policy influence is likely? Concrete implementation of a policy is possible. There is more certainty about the existing knowledge, or less asymmetries of information. Second best options are more likely. Ideal solutions might not have sufficient support. Setting agenda, and structuring a problem is feasible.
What is the role of research? Show clear options for policy design and how an idea can be implemented. Make sense of existing knowledge. Bring stakeholders together, find common ground among stakeholders. Structure (domesticate) or prioritise parts of the problem to move forward.
Keep in mind Beware of wrong problems: oversimplifying a complex problem. Not enough knowledge or not everyone shares the same confidence on existing knowledge. Difficult environment for independent think tanks. All stakeholders, including you, are still learning about the issue.

Source: Ordoñez and Echt (2016) based on Hisschemöller and Hoppe (1995)

Thinking about policy and impact 

The Centre for Public Impact (2016) emphasises the relationship between the technocratic and the political in their Public Impact Fundamentals framework. They identify legitimacy (public confidence, stakeholder engagement, and political commitment); policy (clear objectives, evidence, feasibility); and action (management, measurement, alignment) as drivers of what they call ‘public impact’, or ‘what governments achieve for their citizens’ (ibid.).

The website (www.centreforpublicimpact.org/) offers a variety of tools and resources. They also refer to a Public Impact Observatory, which is a database of more than 350 case studies of public policies from around the world and provides a snapshot of the policy challenge, the initiative, the public impact, and their evaluation of each across nine drivers.

 Watch a video that presents this discussion:

 

Reading 3. Think tanks and forward thinking: navigating uncertain contexts

In this keynote from the OTT Conference 2023, the executive director of CIPPEC in Argentina argues that uncertainty makes forward thinking more necessary, not less, and describes how CIPPEC projected scenarios for the next 40 years of Argentine democracy. Use it for the scenario-planning part of the session: which trends can you already count on, and where would you place your research bets?

From Think tanks and forward thinking: navigating uncertain contexts, by Gala Díaz Langou (On Think Tanks, 7 July 2023), part of the series Think tanks and political uncertainty. Gala Díaz Langou, Executive Director at the Center for the Implementation of Public Policies for Equity and Growth (CIPPEC), delivered this keynote address at the OTT Conference 2023, at Chatham House, London, UK.

How much do you think £20 will be worth in May 2024?

I know it’s an awkward question.

It may be the first time that many people in different countries are asking themselves questions like these more and more frequently, given the global economic situation and growing inflation rates.

But to be honest, in my home country, Argentina, we’ve been asking ourselves questions like these several times over the past 40 years. We’ve had ramping inflation with governments of all political colours.

So, let me ask you again. How much do you think these £20 will be worth in one year?

I don’t want us to focus on the answer. I’d like you to stay focused on the question and, with the exercise, you surely did.

Many of you probably projected a future scenario to think about the value that those £20 could have. This is a very useful idea and we inadvertently do it more and more often to make daily decisions.

It’s also a very common practice in finance: it’s called future value. Its main function is to help us estimate the impact of the decisions we can make today.

But, of course, we’re not in the most fertile context to do these exercises.

The global context

Over the past 40 years, most of the countries have experienced a decrease in interpersonal trust.

We are facing a context of mistrust, polarisation and uncertainty, where economic uncertainty is just one aspect of the many uncertainties we face.

Those of us from the Global South might be a bit more used to this uncertainty and may have become a bit more resilient to it.

And we know that in contexts like these projecting scenarios is not easy. Because uncertainty, instead of inviting us to think about the future, almost always leads us to stillness.

Why? Are we afraid of making mistakes in projections? Or could it be that it’s difficult for us to assume high costs today for the supposed benefits of the future that we do not even know that we will be able to reap?

More often than not, we end up giving up and inadvertently validating the self-fulfilling prophecy that uncertainty leads to immobility.

However, when they pressure us, we come up with alternatives so as not to lose the value of those 20 pounds: fixed term investments, funds, or some even buy goods such as bottles of oil.

We can even rationally choose between these options by calculating their associated risks and returns.

This common sense that we have, individually or corporately, this ability to project into the future even in uncertainty, goes missing in action when we deal with public issues.

But the problem is the same; although the costs of not thinking about the future are probably much higher. But these are not individual costs, they are collective costs and this might explain some things.

What I want to share with you today is that there is a relevant role for think tanks in projecting future scenarios in the public sphere.

This is a crucial exercise in evaluating the expected returns and the risks associated with the decisions we could make today. If we don’t make this projection, we can fall into inaction or improvisation, with catastrophic effects on the majority of the population.

The Argentinian context

I am the executive director of CIPPEC, one of Latin America’s leading think tanks, and the main one in Argentina. From this role, and all the past ones I’ve taken over the past 17 years at CIPPEC, I’ve learnt that, in contexts of extremely high uncertainty, it’s not only possible to carry out this type of analysis, but that forward thinking becomes much more important.

In Argentina we are now facing a major crisis; it has economic, political and even institutional effects. But, amid this crisis, there’s a huge achievement that’s not getting enough attention: in December 2023, Argentina will turn for the first time in its history of 40 years of uninterrupted democracy.

However, this major achievement co-exists with structural and historic debts. The country hasn’t grown in the past 13 years, almost half of the population lives in poverty, even more so if we focus on children.

And this situation is a bit of a paradox because Argentina has everything the world needs right now: energy – the second worldwide reserve of natural gas; food – the leading exporter of flour and soybean oil and the second largest exporter of maize; knowledge – Argentina’s a world leading software developer and exporter; and key minerals – Argentina is the fourth producer and third world lithium reservation.

But, due to our recurrent situation of macroeconomic instability and low rule of law, added to this year’s political uncertainty, we are not able to seize this opportunity.

At CIPPEC we believe that the only way to overcome the now long succession of crisis-after-crisis is to project the future, even amid this uncertainty. Because, by doing so, we might be able to generate the long-term agreements that will enable us to provide more certainties in the future.

Democracy 40

Based on this strong belief, two years ago, we began to project scenarios for the next 40 years of democracy. We named the project, Democracy 40.

First, we backcast the next 40 years: We analysed the trends that we know are going to affect us – the few certainties we have.

For example, the climate crisis – we no longer have any choice; the impact of digitisation on every single aspect of our lives and on labour markets; the fact that most of our countries are ageing; the shifting of global power; or the growing concentration of income in fewer hands.

Considering these and other trends, we projected scenarios for Argentina in 2063 – for the next 40 years. Some of these scenarios were positive and some were negative.

What we sought was to understand what could be done – especially by the next administration, which will start in December this year – to move towards the most positive scenarios.

To get closer to a better future, we undoubtedly need to face our more structural problems.

When we thought about the next 40 years of democracy in Argentina and identified these paths, we focused on pinpointing the first steps in each one of these paths.

We identified 10 concrete recommendations, which are feasible from the technical, the political and the fiscal points of view.

We did this so these actions would be more concrete and more prone to getting the consensus needed for their implementation. In short, these small actions could help reinstitute trust, just because they’re feasible and they might show results.

The role of all think tanks

Just as we did with Democracy 40, think tanks have a crucial role in leading this prospective thinking and, especially, in proposing actions – concrete policies that can serve as the building blocks for reinstating trust and, therefore, reducing uncertainty. But in order for this to work forcibly these exercises need to have three main characteristics, as follows:

1. Forward thinking

When we’re facing a crisis, we tend to focus on the present situation, but we have a responsibility to augment the time frame considered in analysing how to overcome it.

Different techniques might be used: forecasting, backcasting and, surely, other projections. But what we always need to bear in mind is that we need to compare the scenario of what we’re thinking about proposing to do with its costs and benefits to the projection of the status quo.

The status quo is costly and this sometimes gets hidden: we tend to think that a policy is too expensive because it needs an investment that’s larger than zero, but we don’t consider the cost of not doing it.

There are concrete tools, such as the input–output matrix, which are useful in simulating the future impacts, both of the proposal and of the status quo.

2. Applied research

The main pillars of any think tank should be based on applied research. And let me highlight the ‘applied’ part of it: This isn’t only about identifying what works and why or the causal mechanisms within a specific set of public problems, but mostly what may be done in the near future, given the present restrictions in solving these problems. And I’m not only referring to fiscal constraints.

We had a larger perspective, obviously including the restrictive fiscal space, but which also considered the political economy and the technical capacities needed to implement the policies.

Analysing this required an important effort in uncertainty, but it’s incredibly valuable – at least to present scenarios.

3. Other actors

These are processes that need to involve other actors. The main type of actors are all the relevant political forces who might be crucial in deciding a policy’s format and be involved in its implementation.

But it’s also necessary to go beyond political leadership. Most of the problems we’re facing need commitments from other actors: the private sector, unions, the media, and social movements.

We need to include all of these leaderships with two main characteristics:

  • Territorial perspective, involving those who have territorial knowledge, especially in discussing policies that require territorial adaptation.
  • Intergenerational representatives – we mostly discuss structural problems that need long-term solutions.

During the implementation period for these solutions, there might be a renewal in many of those leaderships, and those younger, new leaders, need to already be part of the solution if we want the course that has been set to be maintained. With all of these actors, the solutions need to be constructed.

Making solutions work: What needs to be done?

But, in order for all these solutions to work, we need to continue working for more and better democracies. We need to ensure that all who assume governmental responsibilities respect, with conviction, the rules of democracy.

This is not an overstatement; we’re all seeing what’s happening in many countries where outsiders, not too committed to democracy, have won elections.

We are now, globally, facing an inflection point.

By now, we must know that progress is much more likely and sustainable in democratic contexts. Let’s not jeopardise the democracies that have been so costly to build in many of our countries.

It’s time we accept that, even in uncertain times, it is possible to project the future. And think tanks play a crucial role in this task.

But it’s not only possible to project our future, it’s necessary. Only then will we be able to act to get out of the pessimistic predictions that seem inevitable and move towards optimistic scenarios.

Let’s stop using it as an excuse that mistrust and a lack of certainty are not letting us act.

Keynote address at OTT conference in London, 11 May 2023 – Chatham House. Watch the video.

Reading 4. Setting up a think tank: getting visible from the start

These sections of the article offer practical ways for a new think tank to become visible quickly and at low cost: a repeatable package of outputs, publishing while you read, simple events, reusing previous work, and not waiting for perfect outputs before publishing.

From Setting up a think tank: step by step, by Enrique Mendizabal (On Think Tanks). Other sections of the article are in Modules 1 and 2.

Find your approach

Some think tanks want to start big. They seek lots of funds to plan and deliver huge research projects that they hope will earn them top marks and credentials. This is one approach but the sources of funding for it are quickly drying up and, in any case, few funders are willing to wait months for the first outputs. The problem is that this usually involves going away with lots of money for 6 months to a year to deliver a thick book or report that may be worth every penny but isn’t enough to make a difference or draw anybody’s attention.

Your think tank’s approach should try to get it into the spotlight and stay there for a very long time. I tried an approach with a Zambian think tank: PMRC a few years ago. The approach combines:

The idea is simple. To begin with, the think tank should establish a way of working that can be quickly identifiable by its audiences. One way of doing this is to develop one or more (depending on the size) approaches to its work that deliver outputs fast and frequently -and of an increasingly better quality:

  1. A package of outputs: The first thing any new think tank can do is define a package of outputs that can be produced and delivered on every one of the policy issues it chooses to study. For instance, a new think tank can repeat the same approach (one after the other) for all the topics it wishes to address (every repetition is an opportunity to learn about each and get better at them) by producing:
    1. First a literature review, plus blog posts for each key paper or study reviewed
    2. Then publishing a background document, plus a blog post
    3. Followed by 3 policy briefs, plus three blog posts
    4. Then launching the briefs in an events series (one for each brief), plus accompanying blogs, videos, and media coverage.
  2. Large synthesis and annual reports: There is nothing like a big report to draw the attention of lots of very important people. Putting together large systematic reviews on key policy questions and/or producing a high profile annual report on ‘the state of a sector or challenge’ can be a great way of launching a think tanks. As in the case of the ‘package of outputs’ approach, these reports can (must) be accompanied by a package of other outputs.
  3. Initiatives: The Center for Global Development has written about this approach that remains one of the most interesting ones; but may demand more management competence than you may think.

In my view, new think tanks should avoid, at all costs, starting by working on one large very academic research project that will demand that they ‘go away’ for months or years before they can deliver their first output.

Get started before you need to seek big funding

If necessary, you should not wait until you have funds to start. By taking advantage of a light and flexible governance structure and a high visibility approach (like the package of outputs one) you should be able to start with at least some outputs.

  • Publish while you read: If you and your partners are interested in a topic you are likely to read about it. Every time you read a paper or book or article, post a short review of it on the new think tank’s blog/website. Each post can be simply tagged under your think tank’s key policy topics; e.g. Education, Health, etc. After a while, the site will contain an important repository of content on these issues and you may be able to put together a ‘background post’ that summarises or draws from these previous posts from the literature. You can add an ‘opinion post’ as well. These are all outputs that ‘feel’ more like the outputs of think tanks.
  • Publish other people’s ideas if you agree with them: Using content produced by your board members, associates, and even third parties is a perfectly valid way of ‘producing content’. Think tanks often miss the opportunity to be present in policy debates because they want to wait until ‘they’ have something to say. Windows of opportunity can open at any time and if a think tank is not ready to say something it will miss it altogether. There is nothing wrong with saying: “As so and so said, the best solution is to …”.
  • Organise events and create new content: Organising an event can be a very cost-effective way of drawing attention to your organisation and producing new content.
    • There are many free venues in town: universities often lend empty rooms to their alumni, staff or students (your researchers may be university staff or still be students). You could co-organise with another think tank (if you do all the work they may be happy to lend you the venue). Even coffee shops, restaurants and other businesses may allow you to use their venues in exchange for paying customers. Be creative. Nobody expects a lavish hotel or conference venue for an event to talk about policy and research.
    • Events, also, do not have to be too elaborate and full of pomp. Three chairs for a small panel and room for 25-50 people should be enough. There is no need to offer expensive food or fancy drinks. Attendants, if they go to an event, go for the ideas, not for the food.
    • Keep them simple and to the point (your point -i.e. as made in your reports and briefs): make sure the speakers are briefed, that they only talk a few minutes, and that there is always time for the public to engage.
    • Use the events as a way of producing new content: 1) webstream and record the event (and upload right away) -do not worry too much about film quality, use your phone or the webcam on your computer; 2) live tweet before, during and after the event; 3) record audio and upload as a podcast; 4) upload any presentations or documents shared; 5) write an event report/blog post; 6) interview the panelists for 1-2 minute films (on your phone, it is enough); 7) interview members of the audience; 8) register those in attendance and add to your data-base; etc. You can then publish all of this over the course of weeks if not months while you and your researchers are busy tackling some other policy issue.
  • Use research you have done before: New think tanks sometimes say that they have little need for a website because they have little to publish; or that starting with an event is not possible because they do not have any research to present. This is not exactly true. Think tanks are all about their people and it is unlikely that the people making up a new think tank (however young they are) do not have any previous work and ideas -published or not. All of this can and should be used by the new think tank. You do not have to take credit for it (say, if a paper was written by the director or a researcher while working for another think tank do not delete their logo) but can certainly republish it and add it to the list of studies written by the think tank’s staff. An event, too, can be organised to ‘broadcast’ the guests’ work via the new think tank’s YouTube channel or website. You are not stealing; you are helping to give ‘old’ researcher a longer shelf life. And this is great.

None of these things cost too much (in fact, there are free digital tools for every one of these tasks). They can be done ‘on the side’ to other work and do not demand great skills. But they will go a long way in attracting the attention of funders when you do go looking for funds. And more importantly, your think tank’s URL will not lead to a “under construction” site that will disqualify you from the start.

It won’t break -don’t be afraid to publish

Before you start you will face a close to existential question: are we ready to publish? In other words, are we ready to say what we think? Unless your outputs are of such a terrible quality that getting to this point has been an indisputable miracle then my advice is to go for it. Your outputs may not be perfectly diagrammed and they may have typos but you can always publish new versions (digitally, of course) and by repeating the process you will get better soon.

And your opinions are just that; opinions. Think tanks do not publish ‘the truth’, they publish opinions (some more informed than others): ideas and arguments that are mostly personal value judgements on the basis of a little bit of (available) fact. It is almost guaranteed that someone will disagree with what you have to say. And by the same logic, there will always be someone who agrees with you. And the best thing that can happen is that an important and visible person disagrees with you in public. This will only give you immediate credibility which, if you are smart, you will take advantage of with your very savvy communications strategy.

Reading 5. Build a think tank: How will you ensure its credibility?

Credibility is what allows a think tank to be consulted, funded and quoted, and a small or new organisation has little margin to recover it once it is damaged. This section lists the factors people use to judge a think tank’s credibility, points to the Transparify integrity check for thinking through reputational risks, and presents the lessons of the Center for Global Development and IRADe in India.

From Build a think tank: A guide for policy entrepreneurs (On Think Tanks), chapter The How? questions.

To inform policy and practice, think tanks need to be perceived as credible sources of information and advice. Credibility qualifies think tanks to be consulted on and invited to participate in policy processes. It makes them attractive to funders. It promotes engagement with the media as experts in their field and facilitates access to reputable networks. Without credibility, none of this can occur, so it is a good idea to work on it from the moment your organisation is set up.

But how to do this? And more importantly, what is credibility?

‘Credibility is relational and it entails trust and believability. To be credible, an organisation or person needs someone to trust and believe in them … A credible person or organisation is trusted to have relevant expertise, and believed to be able and willing to provide information that is correct and true’ (Baertl, 2018a).

The paper De-constructing credibility (Baertl, 2018b) identifies 10 factors that individuals draw from and focus on (in various degrees) to assess the credibility of a think tank. These are:

  • Networks. Connections, alliances, and affiliations that an organisation and its staff and board have.
  • Impact. Any effect that a policy research centre has had on policy, practice, media, or academia.
  • Intellectual independence. Independence in deciding their research agenda, methods, and the actions an organisation undertakes.
  • Transparency. Publicly disclosing funding sources, agenda, affiliations, partnerships, and conflicts of interests.
  • Credentials and expertise. Collected expertise and qualifications that a think tank and its staff have.
  • Communications and visibility. How and how often the think tank communicates with its stakeholders.
  • Research quality. Following research guidelines to produce policy-relevant research in which the quality is assured.
  • Ideology and values. Ideology and values are the set of ideas that guide an individual or organisation.
  • Current context. The current setting in which a think tank and its stakeholders are immersed.

To ensure and safeguard your credibility, the public needs to know that your organisation is transparent and intellectually independent. You could use your partnerships, affiliations, and board members to increase your credibility (drawing from the reputation of these organisations). You can also work on establishing and communicating your quality assurance processes. Don’t forget that the key asset in all of this is the people that belong to an organisation – they are the ones who impact whether credibility is maintained or not.

You can read more about think tank credibility in this annotated reading list that reviews academic and non-academic resources and offers an overview of the subject.

Box 49: Transparify integrity check

The Transparify integrity check is a (downloadable) tool that provides scenarios that will help thinktankers think through reputational risks and prevent reputational damage.

Box 50: CGD’s approach

Based on Mendizabal, E. (2014 d), A few initiatives, not many projects, may be the secret to success.

CGD has an interesting approach. Researchers do not have a list of topics but instead focus on one or two key initiatives over a relatively long period of time. These initiatives allow them to organise and allocate cross-organisation resources in ways that other think tanks can’t. They bring together people, research, communications, networking, management, and other ‘assets’ think tanks have to carry out their missions (Mendizabal, 2014d). They describe initiatives as: … practical proposals to improve the policies and practices of rich countries, international bodies, and others of means and influence to reduce global poverty and inequality. Initiatives draw upon the Center’s rigorous research and utilize innovative communications and direct engagement with decision-makers to change the world. (CGD)

In the essay Building a think-and-do tank: A dozen lessons from the first dozen years of the Center for Global Development (MacDonald and Moss, 2014) (the updated version of 12 steps on policy change, Levine and MacDonald, 2014) the authors present lessons, based on their own experience, on how think tanks can organise themselves, how they can seek to bring about change, and how they measure success.

We present them here arranged into the three groups mentioned above (although there are clear overlaps):

On organisation:

  • Start with flexible money, but not too much: use small amounts of flexible money as venture capital. This will depend on the type of organisation you are trying to create, but ideally aim for an ample and diversified portfolio of financial support. CGD found that a good mix for them was 3/4 programmatic funds for specific work and 1/4 unrestricted funding to be used for new programmes and ideas.
  • Hire great people and give them plenty of freedom and responsibility: at all levels, senior and junior, full-time staff and associates. An interesting mission, worth fighting for, as well as a nice work environment will help to attract great people. This requires a good work environment.
  • Share leadership: give staff, at all levels (don´t forget juniors as well), responsibility for running the think tank (or at least their bit of the think tank).
  • Don’t plan, experiment: because this lesson seemingly goes against much of what you will read it is worth quoting the authors on this one: ‘Our strategy, so to speak, is to be ready to react to the sudden appearance of a policy window by having a good stock of well-researched ideas and providing our fellows with space to respond’.
  • Partner with people, not organisations: it is easier to align interests between people than between organisations. Again, a quote on this lesson: ‘We’ve found that the best partnerships are those with very clear, narrowly defined objectives. We partner with a specific purpose in mind, not just to be part of a broad coalition’
  • Resist the growth inertia: there may be lots of important issues and policy processes but they may not all be right for you. Identify the organisational size you are comfortable with. In CGD’s case maintaining a family-like culture was key.
  • Make it fun: a good sense of humour should be a key ‘competence’ in any job description. And beyond fun, CGD strives to be a collegial place.

On bringing about change:

  • Start fresh to stay fresh: be careful of becoming set in your ways. Encourage new ideas and ways to carry out your work and organise your think tank’s operations.
  • Articulate an inspiring mission and aim for results: don’t just aim to know more – what will you do with this knowledge? Your mission should help guide your work, and keep you focused on a goal.
  • Share ideas early and often: think out loud and benefit from feedback and growing support and expectation for your future results; don’t wait until you’ve crossed all the ‘t’s and dotted all the ‘i’s: it will be too late by then.

On assessing success:

  • Celebrate and try to measure success: although measuring success in the evidence to policy environment is difficult, it is much easier when you have a clear sense of why you are doing what you do. What is that new world you want to see? CGD have also tried different (and tailor-made) trackers to understand and measure their impact.
  • Keep asking tough questions: don’t be afraid to rock the boat, both your own metaphorical boat and other people’s. You don’t need to know the answers to all the questions, just keep on asking them.

Box 51: IRADe’s case in India: What makes the think tank credible

Dr. Jyoti Parkih is a founding member and director of IRADe, a think tank in India. He was interviewed by Annapoorna Ravichander and shared what he believes makes IRADe credible and how they achieved this credibility.  Read the full interview here.

According to Dr. Parkih the following reasons make IRADE credible:

  • Strong focus on multidisciplinary research and analysis
  • Evidence based scientific research and sound policy advice/measures
  • Working simultaneously at local, national, regional and global levels and trying to converge in thinking and approach, thereby shaping policymaking at all levels
  • Consensus building approach by involving all stakeholders and groups of interest
  • Strong linkages with policymaking communities
  • Extensive assignments with government, ministries and other governmental departments
  • Cross-sectoral analysis and generating holistic insights/understanding
  • Mix of research and action related work Establishing credibility is a continuous process. IRADe built its credibility by:
  • Being competent and becoming an expert in our field in the areas of modelling and driving regional energy co-operation, gender aspects, etc
  • Having the ability to analyse an issue/situation and develop several potential solutions/options and tailor-made recommendations
  • Doing rigorous work, and by publishing in journals and other publications
  • Being people-centric and consistent in the approach.
  • Continuing focus on multidisciplinary research and analysis
  • Thinking globally and acting locally

Reading 6. The role of think tanks amid political uncertainty: building trust

In these remarks at the OTT Conference 2023, the executive director of the R Street Institute in the United States argues that political uncertainty is, above all, a lack of trust, and that think tanks can rebuild it through credibility, healthy conflict and collaboration. Read it with the integrity and political context parts of the session in mind.

From The role of think tanks amid political uncertainty: building trust, by Erica Schoder (On Think Tanks, 6 July 2023), part of the series Think tanks and political uncertainty. Erica Schoder, Executive Director at the R Street Institute, delivered these remarks at the public launch event of the OTT Conference 2023, at Chatham House, London, UK. Originally posted on the R Street Institute website.

Lack of trust. This is what political uncertainty looks like in the United States today. Lack of trust in our institutions – from Congress to the judiciary – in our elections and in the political process itself.

This lack of trust creates a doom loop of uncertainty and instability. No matter where we are on the globe, evidence of this lack of trust is all around us. We see and feel how it has infiltrated not just our political discourse but our individual relationships. So how do we build trust – as individuals, as organizations, as a sector?

I’m going to suggest that we improve in three areas: credibility, conflict, and collaborations.

Let me first start with credibility. You, and I and everyone who knows what the work of a think tank is understands that credibility is fundamental to our value proposition. Think tanks do a lot of thinking, not just about public policy, but about our own credibility and what makes us trustworthy. And, in fact, our sector has built a great foundation of trust.

We know that we need to have credible structures and governance; credible internal controls that reinforce independence; and credible scholars and think tankers working for us. But I’m going to ask us to take this idea of credibility a little bit further and suggest that we need to behave credibly. We can’t simply be credible organizations and hope people notice; we have to demonstrate it.

To accomplish this, we can’t pretend that we are disinterested observers in the political process. Our organizations are made up of people, human beings, who are passionate about building a better future. Instead of obscuring this, we need to leverage it.

We need to be forthright about the diversity of ideas that inform our organizations’ vision for the world. Our ideologies. Our Values. Our principles. Our norms. When everyone understands what we will hold ourselves accountable to it builds trust.

But we can go further. Internally, as organizations, we need to demonstrate our independence through the decisions we make every day. We need to be explicit about how we make our decisions and be as transparent as possible about those decisions. Particularly when we make a mistake, which we all do, but also when we change our minds when confronted with evidence.

When everyone understands how we hold ourselves accountable, we build even more trust.

Second, we need to strengthen our ability to have healthy conflict.

Without a safe space to lay out our perspectives we, as individuals, can’t speak freely about our ideas. We start to self-censor; we start to lean into our polarized echo chambers. Instead, we need to have meaningful discourse to help us understand the boundaries and limitations of our perspectives so that we can build better ideas together.

This starts internally, within our organizations. We must build a culture of trust. We have to prioritize spaces where we can have trust-based dialogue. And we have to build in the accompanying norms that support these conversations.

Beyond the cultural benefits of building trust, this helps us fulfill our mission. Evidence-based ideas are the coin of our realm. If we can’t talk about ideas, we can’t properly think about them. We can’t test our ideas and make them stronger. So, investing in this capacity to have healthy conflict also helps us come to better policy solutions.

Third, we need to build better collaborations.

To build better collaborations, we need to find common ground in increasingly complex and volatile environments. Our civic spaces have diminished. And so too have our opportunities for healthy civic discourse. Think tanks have a unique role to play here in driving informed conversations. We are very good at leveraging complexity. We are good at leaning into grey areas. We must build on that, but to do so will require a true test of our own ability to trust.

We have to be willing to trust one another. We have to build relationships that challenge us and even make us uncomfortable. We need to build spaces to bring together strange bedfellows. We can’t let partisanship get in the way of building good ideas together. This is a strategy for active depolarization.

As the world becomes more uncertain, we must fight the urge to retreat into the comfort of our echo chambers. Because in echo chambers we neither challenge nor are challenged. This is the real threat in an era of uncertainty. And to thrive in uncertain times, we need credibility, healthy conflict and better collaborations.

Think tanks have to build on our strongest asset: Trust.

Watch the public event ‘The role of think tanks amid political uncertainty’ at Chatham House, London, UK.

Reading 7. Build a think tank: How will it monitor its progress?

This section of the guide makes the case for starting MEL early and keeping it proportionate: define what success looks like, pick a couple of indicators, track them with simple tools and hold a learning meeting once a quarter. That is the approach the session proposes for a small organisation. Use it to decide the two indicators worth tracking in yours.

From Build a think tank: A guide for policy entrepreneurs (On Think Tanks), chapter The How? questions.

It is never too early to start thinking about monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL). Measuring the impact and results of the work of a think tank is challenging, as these things are often intangible (e.g. building relationships with policymakers, playing a key role in debates or networks, etc). The ultimate goal is policy change, but this takes a long time and often cannot be attributed to a specific action, or organisation. Policy change is the result of many factors and actors (Lomofsky, 2016).

A good starting place is to define what success looks like. For this you must reflect on where you locate yourself in the policy process with any particular issue (Lomofsky, 2016). A think tank should not only focus on ‘driving direct policy change but also try to affect what happens before, throughout and after a new policy is designed. For example, to illuminate the way some policy problems are perceived’.

Aim for a balance between accountability requirements and honesty about achievements. This can be done by:

  • Clarifying your policy influence objectives (they need to be realistic). These should be drawn from your mission, projects and the problems you are trying to address.
  • Selecting your policy influence strategies and how can this be measured (e.g. advocacy, communications, capacity building, etc.)
  • Ensuring you have the necessary resources to achieve results.

When think tanks devise good monitoring and evaluation plans, and when they carry out changes and improvements based on the lessons from the MEL exercise, they will be more effective in achieving their objectives (Lomofsky, 2018). A think tank can target this exercise for different areas of work: MEL of research quality, MEL of communications, MEL of governance and MEL of projects.

You need to reflect on what your organisation is already doing in terms of MEL and consider why you want to invest in monitoring your work. MEL for think tanks can have three focuses:

  • Policy influence (MEL-I).
  • Communications (MEL-C): focussing on evaluating and learning from comms strategies.
  • Management and operations (MEL-M): this is about human resources, finance and internal operations.

Box 48. Toolkit: How can we monitor and evaluate policy influence?

CIPPEC has prepared a short toolkit that includes the various factors in the monitoring and evaluation of policy influence: organisational assessment, the basis of a MEL system, indicators, data collection methods and knowledge management, and more.

Based on previous work by Lindsay Rose Mayka (2008), the toolkit explains that there five reasons to conduct evaluations:

  • Accountability: to provide donors and key decision-makers (e.g. board of directors and/or donors) with a measure of the progress made in comparison with the planned results and impact.
  • Support for operational management: producing feedback that can be used to improve the implementation of an organisation’s strategic plan.
  • Support for strategic management: providing information on potential future opportunities and on the strategies to be adjusted against new information.
  • Knowledge creation: expanding an organisation’s knowledge on the strategies that usually function under different conditions, allowing it to develop more efficient strategies for the future.
  • Empowerment: boosting the strategic planning skills of participants, including members of staff engaged in the programme or other interested parties (including beneficiaries).

Incorporating MEL into the daily life of any organisation is well worth it. A smart and proportionate use of MEL tools, and especially a well-thought-out MEL plan, can help think tanks to:

  • Reflect on and enhance the influence of their research in public policy.
  • Satisfy their (and their donors) interest in evidencing the uptake of research in policy.
  • Build their reputation and visibility and attract more support for their work.
  • Generate valuable knowledge for all members of the organisation.
  • Re-organise existing processes for data collection so that they can be useful for real MEL purposes, and discard processes and data that are not useful.

MEL strategies can be carried out in a variety of ways, but it is important to understand the reasons for the MEL effort to best adapt the strategies and methodologies used to the type of knowledge to be acquired.

Monitoring your communications

Based on Monitoring your communications: Try this, by Carolina Kern (2017).

Carolina Kern offers some recommendations for designing a MEL strategy for communications, especially for new and small think tanks:

  1. Be fully clear about what you’re going to measure and why. You can do this by revising your strategic aims or policy influence objectives.
  2. Don’t do anything too fancy to begin with. Pick a couple of indicators and use simple tools to track them. What you choose to monitor and which indicators you use will vary, but the most useful for those new to MEL for communications are shown here:
Indicators Why is it useful
Contacts on database (broken down by organisation type, topic of interest, location, activity level) Provides an instant snapshot of your current audience (who you’re reaching with your outputs).
Points to particular audiences you might need to grow or reengage (if they have become inactive).
Allows you to have a conversation about segmenting your users and tailoring content.
Website traffic (including visitors, views, downloads, listens) Provides information on the popularity of different themes and different types of products (reports vs policy briefs vs videos).
Helps make decisions about which outputs to prioritise.
Event engagement (who registered, who attended, who livestreamed, who viewed the invite) Tells you which events are popular and starts a conversation about why (was it the theme, location, timing, profile of speakers?).
Gives a great indication of how much notice to give before an event, where to publicise, and your event dropout rate.
Media engagement (who is on your list, number of media ‘hits’, number of enquiries) Provides an instant snapshot of a very important audience.
Starts a conversation about how to better engage with media (press releases? special section on website?).
  1. Have a regular (e.g. once a quarter) meeting that focuses on learning and future strategy. You can present your data in a visually engaging way to show trends and use the meeting to brainstorm ideas for future communications and to fix any issues that may have come up.

Having a clear MEL strategy can be time-consuming, but it is one of the best ways to help think tanks achieve the greatest impact in the most cost-effective way, as long as the data collected is analysed and the lessons learnt put to use.

Further reading

Live session

Wednesday 2 December, 15:00–17:00 CET
Facilitated by Camila Ulloa, with GUEST SPEAKER

Session link: https://meet.google.com/cre-kzci-whq

Task for the week

A risk and opportunity map: for visibility, integrity, finances and the political context, one risk and one opportunity you can already see, and what you will do about each.

Submit your task in Google Classroom within a week of the session (45–60 minutes). The facilitator will comment on it there.

Task due: 8 December

Quiz

When you finish the module, take the five-question quiz in Google Classroom (about 10 minutes). It is marked automatically.

Quiz due: 8 December

Recording

The recording and slides of the live session will be posted here after the session.

Next module
Closing session

Contact

If you would like to find out more about the OTT School's learning opportunities, please email us: school@onthinktanks.org