What can academics learn from Ministers Reflect?

The Ministers Reflect archive is a unique source for those outside government too. The interviews provide a rich, publicly available seam of material for academics interested in UK government, politics and policy making. Several researchers are already interrogating the archive in a variety of ways – from using textual analysis to explore ministerial leadership styles, to qualitative comparisons examining different approaches to specific ministerial roles. To discuss how they have used Ministers Reflect interviews in their work and what they have found, we were joined by: Professor John Boswell, Associate Professor in Politics at the University of Southampton Dr Jessica Smith, Lecturer in Politics with Quantitative Methods at the University of Edinburgh Dr Orly Siow, Associate Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies at Lund University This event was chaired by Dr Alice Lilly, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Government. This event was part of the IfG's Ministers Reflect one-day conference.