Partnership with the Open University

10 October 2017

We are delighted to announce that the Open University will take up a partnership with History & Policy from Autumn 2017. They join our existing partners, the Universities of Bristol, Edinburgh, Leeds and Sheffield.

H&P Director Dr Andrew Blick said, “I am delighted to welcome the Open University as a new History & Policy partner. The more excellent historians we have to work with, the better we can serve our policy contacts, and hence our ultimate aim of contributing to a cultural shift in the way policy is made. We believe policy making should be rooted in context, informed by previous mistakes and successes, and backed by institutional memory, and we look forward to working with OU historians to further this aim.”

Since 2002, History & Policy has built excellent relationships with British government departments, policy makers and third-sector bodies, and developed considerable expertise in achieving public policy access and impact. During the last Research Excellence Framework round H&P formed part of the impact environment statement for both Kings College London and Cambridge University’s history department submissions; its members also provided impact cases studies for their departments.

OU Senior Lecturer and H&P committee member Dr Chris A Williams commented, "In my work with History and Policy over the last few years I’ve seen a real appetite in Whitehall to learn lessons from the past. I’ve also seen how keen historians are to make a difference by passing on what we’ve learned. I’m looking forward to seeing more of my colleagues at the OU take advantage of the support History and Policy provides in order to strengthen their impact on public policy. The OU’s tradition of taking research and teaching excellence outside the traditional barriers of the academy makes us an ideal partner for History and Policy. "