What can an astronomer do? Approaches to effective policy advocacy and communication.

What can astronomers do to influence political processes to help change national
policies? What can astronomers do to encourage funding agencies, universities and
observatories to implement more climate friendly actions? Influencing political
processes or organisational systems is a complex task involving grappling with
changing contexts and beliefs, multiple stakeholders and multiple interests.
What is the most effective strategy the astronomy community can take to move
from communicating about climate change and raising awareness, to supporting
climate action and achieve system change?
Drawing from several experiences addressing challenging policy topics and from the
body of knowledge in political science on policy change, I outline a few key
principles which astronomers can adopt to engage effectively with policy and
organisational systems: first, develop deep contextual knowledge of decision
making in policy systems; second, build strong networks including authentic
partnerships across coalitions, and third, participate for long periods of time in the
system. With these principles in mind, I outline a specific template for development
of policy advocacy and communication plan