Policy Papers
History & Policy papers are written by expert historians, based on peer-reviewed research. They offer historical insights into current policy issues ranging from Afghanistan and Iraq, climate change and internet surveillance to family dynamics, alcohol consumption and health reforms. For historians interested in submitting a paper, please see the editorial guidelines.
Currently, 252 papers are freely searchable by theme, author or keyword, with new papers published regularly. Where possible, we publish papers to coincide with relevant policy developments. If you are a policy maker, civil society practitioner or journalist and would like to contact one of our historians, please contact [email protected].
You can download H&P policy papers directly from the Apple iBooks store to your iPhone, iPad or Mac. We also have an Amazon Kindle version to download to your PC for transfer to your Kindle via USB cable. Please consult your Kindle manual for further details.
Historians and Think Tanks: Lessons from the U.S. Marketplace of Ideas
US think tanks, as intermediary organisations that have become highly efficient at funding themselves and marketing their experts, potentially offer lessons in how historians in the UK might communicate more effectively with policy makers. Yet American think tanks would themselves benefit from more actively harnessing academic expertise, as closer association with universities would help alleviate their financial vulnerabilities and enhance their public credibility.
Read MoreCriminalising Disease Transmission: Lessons from Soviet Approaches to Sexual Health
The transmission of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) was criminalised in the Soviet Union. Sex education materials classified STIs as antisocial illnesses that were contracted by people engaged in deviant or immoral behaviour. The Soviet experience suggests that the stigmatisation of patients and criminalisation of disease transmission can disincentivise seeking treatment, impose barriers to accessing healthcare services, and contribute to rising rates of infection.
Read MoreRenewing the War on Waste
DEFRA's long-awaited awaited Environment Bill, currently passing through the final stages of Parliamentary scrutiny, echoes some of the initiatives implemented by the Ministry of Supply during the Second World War. An understanding of that wartime experience draws attention to lessons and warnings that are applicable today.
Read MoreThe vices of patronage for health services under reform
Non-executive appointmentees the NHS have an important role as umpires when conflicts arise between clinicians and managers. Yet their appointment has posed a series of problems, and in the 1980s the process became politicised. The creation of the NHS Appointments Commission in 2001 by New Labour was an attempt to create a more rhobust system of selection and evaluation. Recent reforms to the health service threaten the return of patronage-based appointments.
Read More‘Old Corruption’ revived? Lessons from the Past
Britain’s long and scandal-ridden struggle against ‘Old Corruption’, which prevailed for much of the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, is instructive in the light of recent scandals concerning public appointments and public contracts.
Read MoreA National Social Care Service beyond COVID-19: Lessons from the History of Mental Health Social Work and the Origins of the NHS
The curative model of health influenced the development of mental health services during the first years of the NHS and therefore social care came to be viewed as supporting clinical services and was only peripherally involved in the planning of health services. Clinical services had their ‘1948 moment’, but social work did not, experiencing only gradual and piecemeal reform.
Read MoreThe Contending Allies: What the Trade Unions and the Labour Party can learn from the experiences of their predecessors between the Wars
The relationship between the Labour Party and the trades union movement has often been tense in the past. But interwar political history of Britain illustrates the dangers to Labour of losing touch with the unions, as well as pointing to how effective working relations might be maintained.
Read MoreVaccine Hesitancy and ‘BAME’ Populations
Public health authorities need to understand the specific reasons for ‘vaccine hesitancy’ among BAME communities – but they should also not ignore public health measures that have worked historically in building the high levels of trust in vaccination currently enjoyed in the United Kingdom.
Read MoreThe West needs to appreciate how the protest movement in Belarus has been shaped by the Soviet past
Any engagement strategies on the part of the West in the current crisis in Belarus must take into account the lasting importance of Soviet legacy in shaping contemporary social and political attitudes there.
Read MoreThe virtues of decentralisation for health services in crisis
The experience of health provision during the Second World War suggests that proper decentralisation is a virtue in the development of service capacity and state building. The desire of the centre to control everything results in extended lines of communication and inapposite top-down solutions.
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About Us
H&P is based at the Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, University of London.
We are the only project in the UK providing access to an international network of more than 500 historians with a broad range of expertise. H&P offers a range of resources for historians, policy makers and journalists.
