This is OxPolicy. We are group of Oxford University students starting up a framework for university members and local people to engage with policy and policy makers. Founded in April 2013, we’re still very new, but have grown exponentially and organically since then due to our work and the sheer interest in our mission. We’re based at the Oxford Hub, above the Turl Street Kitchen in central Oxford.
We want to reduce the gap between people and the decision making processes around them. There are three main ways we try to do this. We aim to encourage debate; to improve the policies shaping our society we need to discuss the options. To this end, we try to give students a voice by providing a forum for their individual perspectives and by helping under-represented groups get their voices heard. In this way we seek to empower those involved with us. All of this is underlined by our goal to educate students, locals and everyone beyond these two groups about the happenings around them and also about the skills they can unlock by engaging in policy.
We differ from other societies in our results-oriented approach: for example, the events we host are aimed at furthering an understanding of the topic which forms an input to our report writing. Our focus is on the policy underlying real issues, rather than the partisan politics surrounding them. We examine a very broad range of issues: our flagship research projects generally have a social policy core, whereas our blog and additional projects often consider areas as diverse as foreign policy and infrastructure concerns.
We work closely with the wider student body and the local community through public events, close links with societies and established think tanks, and on our online platform. Everyone is welcome to get in involved. If you have a comment on something we’ve written, a suggestion about a debate we might encourage or just want to know more please get in touch. You can reach specific people using the contact details here, should you wish. We’d encourage you to take a look at our blog, our reports or come to one of our events.
OxPolicy is a editorially independent and fully non-aligned. Our funding is sourced from a number of groups and organizations who support us on the occasion we need funding to run an event or to produce our research in a physical format.
In the 2012/13 cycle, our funding came solely from the Oxford Hub, of whom we are organizationally a subcommittee.
In the 2013/14 cycle, our funding so far has come from the following groups.
The organizations funding us are also fully credited in recognition of their positive action in helping to fix important social issues and their investment in students & the community. If you have any questions about our external financing, please get in touch with . Inquiries about our internal finance operations should be made to .
