What should be included in a policy brief?

A policy brief, as described above, should include the following:

• Key messages – one page of bullet points summarising the most important take-home messages from the policy brief, including the problem description, options for addressing the problem and implementation considerations
• Executive summary – a summary (e.g. three pages) of each section of the policy brief (the problem, policy options, and implementation considerations) that can be read quickly by someone who may not have time to read the full report
• Full report – (e.g. 25 pages) including:
• • The problem – a description of the problem, including how it came to attention and the reason for preparing the policy brief at this time, any important considerations about how the problem has been framed, the size of the problem, and factors underlying the problem
  • Policy options – a description of two or more viable options for addressing the problem, including a description, the likely impacts, and a consideration of impacts on equity, costs and cost-effectiveness, as well as issues related to monitoring and evaluation
  • Implementation considerations – a description of important barriers to implementing the options as well as of implementation strategies, including the advantages and disadvantages of each relevant implementation strategy
  • References and appendices, including an appendix describing how the policy brief was prepared

A detailed policy brief outline, a template for a full SURE policy brief report, a template for an executive summary, and the SUPPORT Tool for preparing and using policy briefs are all provided in the ‘Additional resources’ section later in this document.

This page was last updated November 2011