Tim Loughton, former Children's Minister, talks to Sally about the importance of listening directly to children when making policy. Tim also reflects on what makes research relevant, and of the value of Ministers getting out on the "front line" to see things for themselves. We talk about why children are not enough of a priority, the frustration of issues falling down governments' agendas, and the role Back Bench MPs can play in holding governments to account.

Professor Sir Harry Burns, Former Chief Medical Officer in Scotland, talks to Sally about how he gave up surgery to work in Public Health because he saw that his patients needed better wellbeing, not more surgery. Harry reflects on the science that led him to advocate for investment in early childhood, the importance of collecting data, and the value of improvement science approaches. We hear about what can be achieved when working with politicians who are "clever, nice people".

Sir Peter Wanless, CEO of the NSPCC, talks to Sally about the role that charities can play in supporting research, development and innovation in public services. Peter also reflects on his time in the civil service, and the role of evidence, data and insight in driving up the quality of schools and children's services. We discuss the importance of local services and systems understanding children and families and finding sustainable solutions that take account of different contexts (and there's a good anecdote about Ed Balls and Dolly Parton).

Baroness Beverley Hughes, Former Children's Minister talks to Sally about the "what works" culture in the last Labour Government. We hear Beverley's memories on the role of evidence in policies including Sure Start; tackling teenage pregnancy and the smoking ban; reflections on how evidence can help politicians make the case for change, and the challenges of balancing academic evidence, political views and the practicalities of delivering services at scale.

Carey Oppenheim, Early Years and Child Poverty expert, talks to Sally about her time in Government, establishing the Early Intervention Foundation and the lessons she has learned through her career. We discuss the early development and expansion of Sure Start; what we've learned about using evidence-based programmes, and the need to combine local community insight with research expertise to find sustainable solutions for children and families.

Sir David Bell, Former Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education, talks to Sally about research, politics and the critical role that civil servants play in helping Ministers to navigate evidence. This is a journey through more than twenty years of children's policy from Every Child Matters, through raising the school leaving age, the Academies act to Labour's current thinking on early education.

Welcome to the Mobilise Podcast, a new mini -series from the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. This podcast was developed to help people who are trying to harness the power of research to improve children's lives and life chances. Through six episodes, we'll delve into the relationship between research, evidence and children's policy through conversations with leading policymakers, politicians and influencers in the UK. My name's Sally Hogg and for nearly 20 years, I've been working in children's policy.

At 21 I graduated from Oxford having studied Developmental Psychology and I became a fast streamer in the Department for Education and Skills in Westminster. With a head full of the science of child development, I soon became puzzled about how civil servants were expected to be generalists without any specialist expertise in the areas in which they developed and delivered policy. After working in national and local governments and in charities, I'm now a Policy Fellow in the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge.

My role involves helping policymakers in national and local governments to use knowledge from research in their work to improve children's lives. This is an unusual role in UK universities and one made possible by funding from the LEGO Foundation. Research evidence can help us to make children's lives better. It's one part of a jigsaw, alongside data, professional expertise and insights from communities that can all help decision makers to understand not just what works, but what will work best for this child, this family, this community and this context. 

It's not always easy to use evidence in policy making. Politicians and policymakers are constantly required to balance their knowledge of what works with constraints created by limited resources, tied electoral timescales and political commitments. The different priorities, considerations and pressures faced by policymakers and researchers can make it difficult for them to work together.

There are ways in which they can and can collaborate to harness their different insights and expertise. We wanted to explore all of this with people who've spent many years, often decades, working in children's policy, both inside and outside of government. In this podcast, I explore with our guests how they did, and sometimes didn't, use research to improve people's lives and what lessons might be learnt by researchers and policymakers in the future.

I'm hugely grateful to our guests for taking the time to talk to me and for sharing, often quite candidly, their recollections, the things they're proud of and what they'd wish they'd done differently. Anecdotes shared by our guests, which involve everyone from cabinet ministers to country and western stars, all illustrate the challenges and opportunities that arise when trying to use evidence in complex political environments. There are varied perspectives expressed in my conversations.

Some guests share positive reflections on the use of evidence, others are more sceptical. Some guests recollect the same policy decisions, such as the expansion of Sure Start, but with differing points of view about its success. All of this illustrates just how complex and interesting the world of children's policy can be, and there are lots of lessons to be learned. I do hope that you enjoy this podcast, and whether you work in policy and research yourself, or you're just listening out of interest.

I hope you come away with valuable insights about what can be done to improve children's lives and life chances. Thank you for listening.