This week’s Think Tank Initiative Exchange (#TTIX2018), taking place in Bangkok, Thailand, will build on a decade of TTI lessons, experiences and insights on the challenges of building and sustaining policy research organizations that are able to maximise the quality and effectiveness of their contributions to policy processes and to improve development outcomes in their countries and their regions.

With ambitious agendas captured in international policy architecture like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030 agenda and the Paris Agreement of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the need to bring evidence to bear on policy and to facilitate efforts to drive policy-informed action has never been greater.

Policy research organizations are already making valuable contributions to the achievement of these frameworks at national, regional and global levels, and have the potential to catalyze further action around these agendas, working collectively with other key actors, in the years to come.

This Exchange will allow participants to explore how policy research organizations can further improve their contributions to a sustainable future and what new kinds of collaborations might be required to promote evidence informed policy making as successfully as possible.

TTIX (November 12-14, 2018) aims to bring together representatives of think tanks, policymakers, donors and other research-to-policy actors in order to:

• Promote debate and dialogue on the critical factors contributing to the sustainability and impact of policy research organizations;
• Generate critical insights and reflections on effective approaches to supporting policy research organizations;
• Understand the catalytic role that policy research organizations can play in contributing to international frameworks like the SDGs, and how they might work collectively with other key actors to contribute more effectively;
• Explore strategies and approaches for how best to animate evidence informed policy ecosystems with a view to identifying opportunities for future collaboration amongst policy research organizations, funders and other relevant actors.

A think-piece Think Tanks at the crossroads of evidence. What next?  kicked off preparations for the conference, and you can read the ensuing debates.

The conference agenda is good guide to what’s happening, and you can follow the conference happenings on Twitter using #TTIX2018