Policy Brief

Who it's for

Policy officers, researchers, journalists and public affairs staff writing a policy brief for a decision-maker, at any level.

Output

• Four sourced reports on the issue, the policy, its regulatory environment and the political risk around it, each with a confidence rating on every section
• A brief written in your own words and checked claim by claim against its sources
• A scored defence in a room that has not read the brief kindly, with the moment that earned each score and one recommended focus
• Scored against published frameworks: the Minto Pyramid Principle and Aristotelian rhetoric after Jay Heinrichs; the reports rest on named, cited sources

Program contents

1. Neutral issue reading · Issue Briefing
2. Policy mechanics · Policy Analysis
3. Regulatory mapping · Regulatory Environment
4. Political risk reading · Geopolitical Risks
5. Defending the brief · Presentation Under Pressure

How the program works

A self-serve program for policy officers, researchers and journalists writing a brief on a named policy, built on Renatus. Four research rooms and one simulation room · Five weeks, one room a week · Unlimited attempts · Ongoing thereafter.

The rooms

Why this program exists

You have a policy brief to write and a room to defend it in. A brief has to explain the issue without taking a side, explain what the policy does apart from what it claims, set out the rules it sits inside, and read the politics that will decide whether it survives. Then a minister, an editor, a committee or a client asks the question it did not cover, and you have moments to answer. This program prepares you through research and one defence. Ren researches the issue, the policy, the rules around it and the politics from public sources and writes four sourced reports, then plays a room that has not read the brief kindly and scores how you held it.

What you'll achieve

1. Four sourced reports on the issue, the policy, its regulatory environment and the political risk around it, each with a confidence rating on every section
2. A brief written in your own words and checked claim by claim against its sources
3. A scored defence in a room that has not read the brief kindly, with the moment that earned each score and one recommended focus
4. Unlimited attempts at Presentation Under Pressure, each a new scene calibrated to your audience, charted against every attempt before it

At a glance

Who it's for

Policy officers in government, parliaments and public bodies; researchers in think tanks, universities and NGOs; journalists on a policy beat; and public affairs and regulatory staff in companies affected by a policy. It assumes a named policy, proposed or in force, in a named jurisdiction, and a reader who will decide something with what you write.

Cadence

5 weeks

1

Neutral issue reading · Issue Briefing · Read the low-confidence findings first; check three claims

2

Policy mechanics · Policy Analysis · Check three claims; write the mechanics paragraph

3

Regulatory mapping · Regulatory Environment · Check three claims; write the rules paragraph

4

Political risk reading · Geopolitical Risks · Check three claims; write the brief

5

Defending the brief · Presentation Under Pressure · Read Question Response first; deliver the brief

Session by session