Budapest – ESI at CEU workshop on action research, effective writing, and advocacy
12 April 2018
ESI's Gerald Knaus, Kristof Bender, Adnan Cerimagic and former ESI analyst Besa Shahini (now deputy education minister of Albania) led a two-day workshop ("Action Research, Effective Writing, and Advocacy 2018") organised by the Central European University in Budapest. They conducted practice-oriented modules and shared their experiences from more than 15 years of think tank work.
Issues covered were:
- Introduction “Writing for Impact” - put the reader first
- Empirical case studies (Montenegro) - how to show reality to change policy
- Writing about institutions (corruption in the Council of Europe)
- Transforming the education debate in Kosovo - how to integrate research and advocacy
- Basic writing tools - how to build sentences and paragraphs that work
- Break out groups - forming teams for feedback on drafts
- Brainstorming session (Kosovo education research) - how to design research for impact
- Presentation tools - how to persuade - the power of repetition
Gerald, Kristof, Adnan, and Besa talked about the background story – how to research, write and advocate for change – using different case studies from our work in recent years:
- The European Swamp (Caviar Diplomacy Part 2) – Prosecutors, corruption and the Council of Europe (2016)
- Montenegro: Germany's Balkan stipends – Asylum and the Rozaje exodus (2015)
- The Merkel Plan – A proposal for the Syrian refugee crisis (2015)
- Books and Teachers – The Great Debate on Education Kosovo needs (2014)
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