 Two-way dialogues, how to create spaces for science policy interaction and dialogue. This is what we're going to be chatting about. As I said, the first thing I want to talk about is why EGU does these and activities and initiatives. For those of you who don't know, the EGU's policy program is actually relatively new. So we first had the EGU's policy program in 2016, and we built it up from there. When we first created the policy program, we really had to think about what our overarching policy goals were. So the first thing that we have listed here, and I think is the most important thing that we work on, is to empower EGU members to become more actively engaged in the policy process. So this is all of the resources that we provide our members. It's things like our newsletter, any information we have on our website, the webinars that we do, general assembly sessions, blog posts, all of this kind of stuff, the advertised external opportunities exist for scientists to get involved, as well as the internal activities we have within EGU as well. The second thing, which is what we're going to be primarily focusing on today, is the opportunity that we create for EGU members to connect with policymakers. So this is specifically these two-way dialogue situations that we create. And I will go into this in more detail in the following slides. So the third one is to function as a trusted source of scientific information, which we've started doing more recently. And the fourth one is to support policy for science. So this is anything to do with policies that involve research funding, education, that sort of thing. We do, as the EGU, we do do less of this, but we do make the occasional statement and things like that. So today's webinar is very much going to focus on the second step here, which is to provide opportunities for EGU members to connect with policymakers. So when we talk about a two-way dialogue, what do we mean? Why do we want to do this? In a very, very broad sense, a two-way dialogue is basically any form of communication that is more than one person talking. And so in this sense, you can think of even Twitter as sort of a two-way dialogue, right? Or if you're a scientist and you go into a school and talk to children, yes, it's primarily going to be you talking. But if the kids are asking questions and there's interaction, that's a dialogue. More than that, we really want to create a space for a mutual exchange of ideas and perspectives. So while, of course, if you have questions from kids or if you're chatting to someone on Twitter, that is a two-way dialogue. We're aiming for something more than that when we talk in this sense. We're aiming for this back and forth, this exchange of information. And I think this is really clear because often when scientists go into talk to someone, whether that be the public or children again or even policymakers, they go on with the aim of sharing their ideas, sharing their expertise, their research. And it's a lot more of that and a lot less listening about what the policymakers needs might be, about what they expect, about the challenges they're facing. And so without this back and forth, about this dialogue, I think quite often you don't necessarily talk over each other, but you can miss the point. So we're really emphasizing this exchange of ideas. And this, as the second point highlights, actually involves active listening. So as scientists going into a situation where we know there's going to be a policymaker there, it's about understanding what their needs are. And to be able to understand this, you have to ask the right questions and you have to listen. And I think sometimes when we go in and the policymaker has an initial idea of what they need. When you go in, you present the response to that. And you, after listening to some of the feedback or some of the additional questions you have, you actually might start to realize that's not the problem they have at all. And then you can talk about the actual question they have. And the actual question they might, or the initial question they might ask the policymaker, might be too difficult for you as a scientist to answer. It might not be a scientific question that you can answer at all. And then there might need to be a bit of exchange on how you can change the question to be something you can answer or reframe it. And that sort of thing as well. So not only do you have this mutual exchange, but it also allows you to connect with the person, build trust, develop relationships, and also create synergies. So where does your work overlap? How can you collaborate in the future? And once you build trust with someone, they are more likely to come back to you in the future. So a two-way dialogue is more than just, again, you talking at someone and them asking questions. It's about trying to build this relationship so that you can collaborate in the future. And this is challenging. And quite often when the EDU, as I'm going to mention later in this short presentation, when the EDU does create these spaces for a two-way dialogue to happen, we don't know how effective it is. And sometimes if you're doing it on a large scale like an event, you don't know how every interaction is going to go because you're not there, especially if the scientists and policymakers, multiple of them in the same room connecting. You don't know how exactly they're doing this, but you hope that this is happening. So what does a two-way dialogue look like? I've already mentioned this a little bit. It can look like a lot of different things. The thing that EDU has focused on in the past is really these in-person events. Now, this is something we obviously had to change during COVID. We had to go online. And that, I think, from a personal perspective, and I think a lot of people feel the same way, it does reduce this interaction that you can have because it reduces how open people are, how much informal information they're able to transmit, or they're comfortable transmitting. And it's this more informal information that can really help you create those relationships and that trust. But if you can't, in-person events as well, they do differ. Again, you can have a traditional panel session where you do get interaction from the audience through questions. But what the EDU has done in the past is to create these interactive roundtable discussions. So you really get each person at the table to give their input to introduce themselves. So the people after they leave the event, even if it's just for a couple of hours if they're sitting with these people, they have that network. They can build on that individually if they want to pursue it. But outside of that, you also have a webinar on my meeting with the one we're going to be doing today. You have, obviously, talking on the phone. Again, it depends how open someone is to talking on the phone to how much informal information you'll gather. But that is a very valid way of creating this two-way dialogue as well. Then you also have the slightly longer versions, which I also, I mean, it's a bit, we do them at EDU. So I quite like them. But these longer form of two-way dialogues like a pairing scheme or a fellowship or a placement can really help build those relationships over a longer period of time. So you're more likely to stay connected with those people and you're more likely to actually build an understanding of what they need. But as I said initially, it can also be a tweet, an email, an instant message or something like that on a smaller scale. So when we're talking about two-way dialogues, I know when I'm talking about this, and it's a very loose concept, I'm sure as you're listening to this, you might be thinking of previous events that you've been involved with or you've managed previous webinars, and you're like, oh, yeah, that was a two-way dialogue or you're like, oh, yeah, I sent that email. That was definitely a two-way dialogue. So you can already think of some examples. But when we are thinking about planning or creating the science for policy space, it's really important to think about what your aims are. So when we're thinking about creating a webinar or creating an event, you have to think about, OK, are we just trying to create this specific network? Are we trying to build a relationship? Do we want to transmit this information that we've created? Or do we want to hear from the policymakers about what they need in the future? So next time we meet with them, we can actually bring them something that's useful. So understanding what your aims are can help you think about who you should invite to these particular events, like who you want to connect with. And then once you understand that, you can understand what is important to them. So if I'm inviting policymakers to an event, usually it's quite specific people. So I understand what policy or legislation they're working on at the moment, what information they're likely to find interesting, how we could frame it in a way that they will be responsive to, and then also involving them in the event as well. How can we get them involved? How can we encourage them to be a speaker at our event or to give a response or something like that? And how can we get them involved in the networking as well? So when you're doing this stakeholder mapping can be a really useful tool. Obviously, I'm not going to go into that right now because it's quite, that would be another webinar. Maybe we'll do that in the future. But it can be really useful to thinking about not only the policymakers involved in your particular topic that you want to focus on, but also the other stakeholders, maybe the NGOs or the other research institutes that are interested in the same topic that we're valuable to also connect with. So when you're organizing these sort of events as well, you have to obviously think about your own capacity. This includes your own time. How big is your organization? Is it just you? Do you have the time to take this on? If you're going to be doing an event, I always find that they take up more time than I expect to organize to invite people to make sure it runs smoothly. If you don't have that sort of time or those sort of resources, maybe you would like to do one of these sort of webinars instead. So really considering that aspect as well. And then thinking about how you engage with people. So I'm going to actually go on. I will go on in a second to talk about what the EG was doing in November and how we planned for that. But when you're planning your engagement, you're planning an event, or when you're planning a webinar, is there something you can do in the lead up to that that will get people interested, that will get people thinking about it before they get invited to the event and really make them want to go? Engaging with them before that can be a really useful tool as well. So already knowing the people you're going to invite, making sure they already know who you are, means they're more likely to turn up to your event and they're more likely to engage in this two-way dialogue. And then once you have the event, following up, how do you plan on doing this? Do you think you'll do a survey or will you highlight some of the outcomes of the event? Will you just thank people for coming? Will you plan a secondary event? Will you follow up with specific people involved via an email or on the phone or something like that as well? So these are all things that you might want to think about when you're creating a two-way space. So this is just going on to some examples now. And again, this is the short presentation, I'm nearly done with it. But one example I do want to highlight is the EGU's next event. We are going back to having events in person, which is very exciting. So our next event, which I will actually drop a link to in the chat after this, is it's going to be called Supporting Ears by Diversity Targets, Bridging the Science Policy Bid. And this will be held on Tuesday, the 15th of November. It's a relatively short event. So it's from two until 3.30. And then it'll be a networking coffee period after that. It will be held inside the parliament. So, oh, no, I went too far. Sorry. So in this specific case, we are actually focusing on the EU Nature Restoration Law. This is something that the commission has been working on for a while. And it is something that the EGU's Bidiversity Task Force has commented on and has made recommendations for. So we've sort of done a bit of prep work before this. And it will be going through the parliament in November. So it's something that's likely to be of interest to these policy makers. We've made sure we invited very specific people to host the event, so that people who will be hosting the event are actually rapid tours of this legislation. It's something that they are very interested in. And that's good for us because it means they will actually hopefully be more likely to listen to what we have to say and they're more likely to engage with it, more likely to be able to talk to them about it in the future. They will remember who we are. And these are sort of the more important people in terms of this legislation going through. It's important that they remember who we are. So we're also involving other stakeholders as well, so it's a more well-rounded conversation. It does have a scientific focus in terms of we want to involve scientists in the panel as well. And we are inviting the EU's Biodiversity Task Force to be there in person. And we're doing this so during the networking event, they can actually be there. We can tell everyone in the room, all of the MEPs, all of the parliamentarians, people in the room standing over here, this is where you go and talk to them. They are the experts. If you have any questions about anything the panel has discussed, go and talk to them, come and talk to us afterwards. And so we're really gonna try and encourage a dialogue that way. It won't be a round-table discussion like we've had in previous years, because I think that's pretty uncommon to have inside the parliament. It's a bit more rigid in terms of the space, unfortunately, but this is sort of the next best thing that we can do. So other than that, you'll also just generally focus on encouraging evidence-informed policymaking going forward as well. So obviously the first focus is the nature restoration law, the second focus of the event and the overarching focus of every event that EGU does is the importance of getting science into policy. So if you do wanna come, it will be a hybrid event. You don't have to be there in person. You can either register to come in person or you can register to come online. The other, the second example I have is the science policy pairing scheme. As I said before, I think this gives one scientist, one EGU member, the opportunity to engage over a longer period of time, really get to know who is working for this specific MEP. They might have that connection. They might keep that connection going forward because they're gonna be in the parliament for a whole week. They're likely to be mainly looked after by one or two of the assistants. And in terms of engaging with the parliament, if you know one of the assistants there, they're the worker bees or the people who do all the work. So it can be very useful. And if you form that relationship or you have that sort of trust with them going forward, there might be room for future collaboration as well. And the third example I have is this webinar because there are a few people in the room today that are working on the science policy interface as well. So on that note, I'm gonna close up the short presentation today.