Evidence Synthesis and Policy Engagement Training Programme for Peatlands

Synthesising research to influence global peatland policy

Learn about evidence synthesis and policy engagement

This is a virtual training programme for peatlands researchers from any academic discipline on (1) developing an evidence synthesis in the form of a rapid evidence review, (2) engaging with public policy based on that review, (3) producing a policy brief and (4) publishing the evidence synthesis in a peer-reviewed academic journal.

Despite covering just 3% of Earth’s surface, peatlands are champions of carbon storage and ecosystem services. They provide vital habitats for rare, threatened, and endemic species, as well as common wildlife, storing twice the amount of carbon found in forests, acting as buffers for environmental disasters, and regulating clean water sources. Supported by the UN Environment Programme and the British Academy, this training programme is designed to support and equip researchers worldwide to develop evidence synthesis, policy engagement, and academic publishing skills and experience. These skills will be applied to addressing a real-world policy challenge to enable participants to ‘learn by doing’. You’ll be part of critical work to effectively shape peatland management policies globally.

Argentina - Peninsula Mitre - 2022 - Tompkins Conservation

Peninsula Mitre, Argentina, 2022 – Photo by Tompkins Conservation

The programme consists of two types of training: self-paced online training and live virtual training. The programme-level live virtual training sessions are offered at two different time slots, allowing participants to choose the one that best fits their schedule. You will co-produce an evidence synthesis, journal article and policy brief with a team of other researchers.

This training is offered at no cost to eligible participants. However, assurances from line managers will be expected that all selected participants complete the training programme in full.

This training is delivered by the Institute for Methods Innovation, SRUC and St Andrews University, with funding from the UN Environment Programme-led Global Peatlands Initiative and the British Academy.

Eligibility

Participants should be prepared to commit to the entire course duration and workload. This programme involves both self-paced online modules and live virtual sessions, which require active participation and engagement. You should allocate a minimum of 90 hours for course activities, including participation in live sessions, self-paced training and work on your evidence synthesis, journal publication and policy brief.

You do not need evidence synthesis, publishing or policy experience to be eligible to apply. However, you’ll need to meet these requirements:

You have a PhD or equivalent research experience (at any postdoctoral career stage).
The course includes a substantial time commitment that may extend beyond the requirements of your other professional commitments. This is necessary because you will co-author an evidence synthesis to influence policy and peer-reviewed journal publication.
Ensure you can commit time and effort before enrolling, as successful completion will require consistent participation throughout the programme.
Your line manager will need to approve your participation in this course to ensure they are clear on the time commitment involved and supportive of your successful project completion.

How to apply

Entry to this training programme is competitive with a limited number of spots. Applications will be accepted until 27 January 2025. The application process involves a questionnaire with ~20 questions and should take approximately 25 minutes to complete. Interested individuals need to complete the registration form to be considered for a place in the programme.

GO TO APPLICATION

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Application review

We have a total of 50 places available in the training programme. Applicants will be notified via email by 13 February 2025.

If applications exceed available spots, participants will be selected based on the following criteria:

Geographical Diversity: Priority given to participants from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
Topic Allocation: Ensuring a broad coverage of topics across participants.
Gender Diversity: Promoting balanced representation.
Early Career Researchers: Priority given to those on temporary contracts or currently unemployed.

This approach ensures a diverse and impactful group of participants for the training programme.

Key benefits

By the end of this training, participants will:

Gain practical skills and methodological know-how to efficiently conduct rapid evidence assessments, a crucial tool for informed decision-making.
Learn how to write persuasive content tailored for policy audiences and effectively translate your research into real-world policy influence.
Develop hands-on experience in preparing, co-authoring, and submitting a journal article for peer-reviewed publication, with opportunities to contribute to new academic work.
Opportunity to produce a policy brief / publish an evidence synthesis in a peer-reviewed academic journal.

Throughout the programme, you’ll receive training and expert guidance from world-renowned research and impact specialists. In collaboration with the UN Environment Programme-led Global Peatlands Initiative, you’ll also produce evidence syntheses to shape policy outcomes. This training programme will elevate your research impact, enhance your CV, and expand your professional network, equipping you with valuable research and impact skills.

Topics for evidence synthesis projects

Indicative topics for policy-relevant evidence synthesis

This training focuses on pressing issues in peatland management and conservation, addressing critical questions that shape policy and practice set out below. In the application form, you can indicate a topic preference based on your interests and career plans.

Community involvement and perceptions in peatland conservation and management
Land management approaches to reduce GHG emissions in lowland peat agriculture
Vulnerability of peatlands to carbon loss due to climate change
Impact of climate change on peat decomposition rates
Effective methods to engage local communities and Indigenous peoples in peatland initiatives
GHG emission reductions from forest-to-bog restoration practices
Identification and protection of archaeological resources in peatland restoration
Impacts of peatland conservation and restoration strategies on biodiversity

These topics have been selected based on identified needs to inform policy worldwide to make a difference in combating climate change and promoting sustainable land management.

How policy-relevant topics were developed

These topics emerged initially from a collaboration with the PeatQUEST team. This team, led by Dr. Alice Milner at Royal Holloway, University of London, tackled a crucial challenge: identifying key questions that needed to be answered to guide global policies on responsible peatland management, conservation, and restoration. The PeatQUEST project’s mission was to uncover the critical gaps in knowledge that currently hinder policy development within the global peatlands community. Dr. Milner collected over 220 questions from respondents in government and non-profit sectors worldwide. From this dataset, Profs. Mark Reed, Eric Jensen and Lydia Cole used a multi-step process to refine these questions for a rapid evidence synthesis approach:

Organising similar questions into thematic areas.
Shortlisting questions specific enough for rapid evidence synthesis, ensuring there was likely sufficient existing research to answer them.
Refining the phrasing of questions, adding elements like geographical focus to make them suitable for synthesis.
Consulting experts from the Global Peatlands Initiative Research Working Group and other communities when the themes extended beyond the project team’s expertise.

This process has produced a set of key questions designed to drive evidence-based policy development. As a participant in this training programme, you will engage with these questions, contributing to and learning from the evidence synthesis process. This starting list of questions may be refined further as the rapid evidence synthesis gets underway, according to the expertise of training participants, ongoing input from the UN Environment Programme-led Global Peatlands Initiative and/or the volume of evidence available to address each theme.

This background provides context for the critical work you’ll be part of, helping to shape effective peatland management policies globally.

Training timeline

The programme is a unique, specialised training opportunity. Successful applicants must commit to full attendance at all training sessions (dates/times will be advertised in advance). All participants will have access to online self-paced training covering how to develop a rapid evidence assessment, policy engagement and peer-reviewed journal publication.

This training programme will be delivered using a ‘flipped classroom’ approach, where content is provided in advance of live online sessions, with the live sessions dedicated to active learning and hands-on working on an evidence synthesis project in a team of researchers, with expert support. Programme-level training sessions include the full set of participants, while team-level sessions are conducted with only the team members to check in on progress and provide practical support to complete projects successfully.

	Level	Module	Session date	Description
1	Level: Programme	Module: Evidence synthesis development	Session Date: Week commencing 10 March 2025	Description: 3-hour live virtual training session on rapid evidence synthesis led by Prof. Jensen.
2	Level: Team	Module: Supported evidence synthesis work	Session Date: To be determined based on team schedules: Mar-May 2025	Description: Two 1-hour practical sessions per team for hands-on support in developing the evidence synthesis. Teams will give progress updates with expert guidance.
3	Level: Programme	Module: Publishing your evidence synthesis	Session Date: Week commencing 12 May 2025	Description: 3-hour live virtual training session on manuscript scoping, refinement, submission and open-access publishing, led by Prof. Jensen.
4	Level: Programme	Module: Writing policy briefs	Session Date: To be determined: Jun/Jul 2025	Description: 3-hour live virtual training session on crafting and refining policy briefs, led by Prof. Reed.
5	Level: Team	Module: Finalising and publishing evidence syntheses and policy briefs	Session Date: To be determined based on team schedules: Jul-Oct 2025	Description: Up to three 1-hour practical sessions per team for hands-on support for finalising papers and policy briefs for journal publication.
6	Level: Programme	Module: Showcase events	Session Date: To be determined: Nov-Dec 2025	Description: 1-2 hour webinars co-hosted with the UN Environment Programme will showcase the evidence syntheses that have been completed, discussing their policy implications with a global policy and research audience.

Expected time commitments:

The total time commitment for the training period is at least 90 hours. This includes approximately 15 hours of live training and 75 hours of out-of-session work. The out-of-session time consists of around 15 hours for individual learning using the self-paced course (including video watching and reading) and 60 hours of project work. The project work is further divided into 40 hours for the rapid evidence assessment, 8 hours for policy brief development, and 12 hours for co-authoring the journal article.

Information Sessions

January 8: 9:30–10:30 AM ET
January 15: 9:30–10:30 AM UK
January 22: 11:00 AM–12:00 PM Thailand Time

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Contact

For queries, contact: training@methodsinnovation.org

Meet the training team

Professor Eric A. Jensen

Professor Eric A. Jensen is a social scientist with a PhD in sociology from the University of Cambridge. He is a part-time professor at the University of Warwick, where he has led courses on public engagement with science, science policy, audience research and social research methods (including surveys and statistics). He is also a doctoral research supervisor for the University of Oxford. As a visiting research scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, Jensen works on a Sloan Foundation-funded project on research software policy.

Jensen has an extensive publication profile featuring 200+ articles (with 3000+ citations) in peer-reviewed journals such as PLOS ONE, Public Understanding of Science, PNAS and Nature, books by publishers such as Cambridge University Press and SAGE, chapters in edited volumes with publishers such as Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Springer and Palgrave and reports for organisations such as UNESCO and the European Space Agency.

See detailed profile

Professor Mark Reed

Professor Mark Reed works with rural communities to enhance the governance of natural and agri-food systems, and his research on impact is changing how researchers around the world generate and share knowledge so they can change the world. Mark is the Co-Director of the Thriving Natural Capital Challenge Centre and Professor of Rural Entrepreneurship at SRUC, Research Lead for the IUCN UK Peatland Programme and Co-Chair of UNEP’s Global Peatland Initiative Research Working Group.

The goal of the centre he co-directs is to build and study new ecosystem markets that can significantly increase funding to meet net-zero targets and reverse biodiversity decline while supporting thriving rural communities. Prof Reed was one of the original architects of the Peatland Code and sits on its Executive Board, helping to channel private investment into peatland restoration across the UK. He is working with teams to develop ecosystem markets for soil carbon from regenerative agriculture, saltmarsh restoration and agroforestry, and he is working closely with Defra and the Scottish Government to design the policy and governance frameworks necessary to facilitate high-integrity ecosystem markets.

Prof Reed is the author of four books, including The Research Impact Handbook and Impact Culture, and has written some of the most highly-cited papers on stakeholder engagement. He uses this evidence to train researchers worldwide to use their work for social good. Prof Reed has over 200 publications on environmental governance and impact, with over half of these being in the top 10% most cited worldwide. He has led over 20 projects worth more than £4.5M and contributed to over 30 other projects.

Daniela Martin

Daniela Martin is a science communicator with more than 15 years of experience in project management, media production, teaching, and research. She has been a consultant in strategic communication, and social and cultural management for governments, universities, and international organizations such as UNESCO, UN-Habitat, Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR), ITESO and the Government of the State of Jalisco, Mexico.

Daniela is the Director of Communications at the Institute for Methods Innovation where she leads communication planning efforts and manages the company’s social media and online presence. Since joining IMI, she has contributed to over a dozen research projects, including several large EU projects funded by the European Commission. She is also a Research and Communications Associate at Institute for Science and Innovation Communication where she is involved in the EU-funded project AURORA.

See detailed profile

Dr. Andrew George

Dr. Andrew George is responsible for creating and implementing civic science projects. These initiatives focus on understanding methods that utilize community strengths and resources, ensuring that research is conducted collaboratively with communities rather than being imposed on them. Dr. George’s work emphasizes partnership and active involvement of community members in the research process.

Andrew leads a project funded by the Dana Foundation. The project aims to explore innovative methods that can be consistently replicated and expanded to aid community-led initiatives in addressing issues where neuroscience and societal concerns intersect. Essentially, the project seeks to develop practical strategies that communities can use to solve problems related to both brain science and social issues.

See detailed profile

Steering group

Dr Lydia Cole

Dr Lydia Cole is a conservation ecologist specialising in the sustainable management of tropical ecosystems, especially peatlands. She focuses on understanding their hydrological needs amid global changes like agricultural expansion. Her recent projects include mapping peatlands in the UK, Malaysia, and Indonesia; studying vegetation changes in Malaysian Borneo; exploring human-wildlife interactions in northeast India; and training partners in Ghana, Indonesia, and Malaysia on landscape connectivity tools.

Currently, she works with interdisciplinary teams on various projects: evaluating the value of tropical peatlands in the Peruvian Amazon, assessing restoration perceptions in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, researching volumetric literacy for resource management, and developing a pilot project on peat-fired power in Rwanda. Her teaching covers environmental management, sustainable development, interdisciplinary approaches, and research methods, focusing on ecological systems and stakeholder engagement. She also chairs the Conservation Ecology Special Interest Group at the British Ecological Society and leads the Peatlands and Biodiversity Expert Group within the International Peatland Society.

Patrick Scheel

Patrick Scheel is a consultant at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) focusing on sustainable resource management and conservation ecology. He holds an MSc in Sustainable Resource Management from the Technical University of Munich, where he developed expertise in environmental regeneration, social equity, and economic sustainability. Patrick has extensive experience in peatland conservation and has contributed to several international projects, integrating field research, biodiversity monitoring, and sustainable land-use practices across diverse ecosystems.

Patrick’s work involves creating and implementing evidence-based conservation strategies, often collaborating with governments, NGOs, and research institutions. His recent projects include developing mapping and monitoring systems for peatlands, training stakeholders on using decision-support tools for landscape connectivity and examining the effects of climate change on ecosystems. With experience in academia and industry, he ensures that environmental interventions are scientifically grounded and practically applicable.

He is committed to promoting sustainable development through interdisciplinary approaches, bridging gaps between policy, practice, and local community needs. Patrick’s role at UNEP allows him to support projects that align conservation goals with social and economic outcomes, ensuring that environmental initiatives are scientifically rigorous, socially inclusive, and economically viable.