8.I. Skills building seminar: Improving your elevator pitch: convincing a policymaker in a matter of seconds

Abstract

Abstract Many public health researchers aspire their scientific findings to contribute to evidence-informed policies. However, realising this translation of evidence into policy is often experienced as a challenge. This is no surprise, as typical researchers’ activities - from data collection and analysis to publishing scientific articles - is a totally different ballgame than getting your messages across to policymakers. Additional skills are required by public health researchers in order to let their research findings make their way into health policies. One of those skills is to be able to pitch your work when meeting a policymaker e.g. in an elevator. In this skills building seminar high scoring abstract submitters will be invited to present their work in maximum 60 seconds to a panel of policymakers and politicians. Following the learning by doing approach, this hands on session will not only be a learning experience for the presenting researchers, also the audience will learn, as each pitch will receive feedback on the spot from the panel of real policymakers and politicians. Are they interested? Do they remember the key message? And if all goes well, do you get an invitation to come back and present more of your work? Since a number of years the European Public Health Association (EUPHA) has been organising skills building seminars on the elevator pitch. Building forward on those previous four successful and well-attended workshops, the current workshop will follow up on this series and take forward where the previous editions ended. Lessons learned at the previous elevator pitch workshops: - Have a clear ask (keep it simple) and show enthusiasm. - Appeal to the policymaker's own interests and priorities. - Spell out how action will be beneficial for the policymaker. - Be aware of upcoming elections. - Build a relationship with the assistants of politicians. - Consider the ‘policy window’. - Make the comparison with the policy plan. - Propose an action the politician should undertake. - Identify the relevant stakeholders and groups affected by the problem. For this fifth edition we take the elevator pitch to the next level. Whereas previous editions allowed pitches up to 2 minutes, the current seminar will set the timer at 60 seconds. The previous editions showed that keeping the pitch very short was more successful. The session will be wrapped up by a key note with reflections on the pitches exercise and linking this to what the literature says about influencing healthy policy making. Key messages • The elevator pitch is a useful skill to have for public health researchers to facilitate the outcomes of their research feed into health policies. • There are numerous tools available to effectively communicate public health messages to policymakers and promote evidence-informed policy making.