About the conference:

The 2nd European conference on Qualitative Research for Policy Making 2011 (QRPM2011) was held on the 26-27 May 2011 in Belfast in UK. This highly interactive, cross-disciplinary conference brought together policy researchers and practitioners to discuss best practices for delivering and interpreting qualitative research for policy making. This event was co-organised by the Merlien Institute and the ARK Team from the University of Ulster and Queen's University Belfast.

Conference format:
The conference format consisted of submitted (reviewed) presentations, invited keynotes, brainstorming workshops and interactive discussion sessions. As with all our past events, this conference provided excellent opportunities for participants to network with peers.

Topics that were discussed and debated during the conference included:
Understanding policy making processes: how to engage and connect in policy environments
Timing is everything: balancing topicality, relevance and precision in delivering evidence-based policy making 
Anticipating 'hot issues' and producing timely reports for policy makers to report new developments
Drawing policy maker's attention to relevant findings: the case of radical welfare reforms in the UK
Qualitative evidence for municipal service delivery protests: what are the implications for South Africa?
Seeing it from the other 'side': how qualitative research is understood and evaluated by policy makers?
Supporting the application of grounded theory qualitative studies for policy making
Archiving qualitative data for policy research: meeting the challenges and establishing best practices
Using media and other non-traditional sources in qualitative policy research: developing strategies to enhance validity
Developing strategies for enhancing qualitative research for policy making in times of austerity
Discussing opportunities and challenges for science to enter into policy environments
Aligning policy-making and qualitative research: the strategy oriented perspective
Devleoping indicators of study quality in systematic reviews of qualitative research to inform policy making
Converting qualitative research conclusions into actionable policy recommendations
Utilising qualitative software to accelerate data collection, data analysis and reporting
Discussing best practices on how to write, report and disseminate qualitative research findings

Photos:

Publication opportunities:

Giuseppe (European Commission), Gillian (Ulster), Robert (Queen's) and Jasper (Merlien Institute) are planning to edit a special issue on Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, a highly reputable journal published by Routledge. The special issue will be double-blind reviewed and will be based on papers submitted to the QRPM2011 and QRPM2010 conferences. For those of you who did not submit your papers on time but would like to be considered for this special issue, please send me a note at events(at)merlien.org before 15 June. If you did not submit a paper to QRPM, but would like to submit a paper for this special issue, you are also welcome!

View or download presentation slides, papers and outputs from this conference:

http://www.slideshare.net/event/qrpm2011/

Conference Reviews/blogs:

Recognising the value of qualitative research in the policy making world by Francesca Morosi

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