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By Alan Hardacre, PhD Co-Founder Advocacy Academy, Advocacy Strategy Working effectively in the EU requires working with all three key European Institutions (Commission / Parliament / Council). European Trade Associations often excel with the Commission (their natural partner) and work well with the Parliament (more challenging but still based in Brussels-Strasbourg). Where things become much more challenging is if/how/when they work with the Council across the 27 Member Stat

By Paul Shotton, Co-Founder Advocacy Strategy Many organizations want to train their teams to use AI tools—but quickly discover they can’t design meaningful training without first understanding where they stand and where they want to go. When developing a training program on AI adoption for a client’s public affairs team, we were ready to dive into practical skills: prompting, mapping workflows, building SOPs, and even developing AI agents. IN many instances it becomes clear

By Alan Hardacre, PhD Co-Founder Advocacy Academy, Advocacy Strategy As organisations operate in increasingly complex political, regulatory, and societal environments, Public Affairs teams are being asked to do more—with greater sophistication, speed, and cross-functional alignment. This in itself is obviously a challenge. But there is a second challenge emerging that we see with many clients - internal capability and capacity building in Public Affairs is not keeping pace wi

By Stefan Borst, Senior Partner Advocacy Strategy C‑suite leaders are operating in a post‑lobbying age. The old model - episodic meetings, discreet intermediaries and back‑channel deal‑making - has not simply frayed; it has been officially re-priced. In 2024 the OECD broadened the global bar for conduct by revising its “ Recommendation on Transparency and Integrity in Lobbying and Influence” . It explicitly widens “lobbying” to include the full spectrum of influence - from di

By Paul Shotton, Co-Founder Advocacy Strategy / Advocacy Academy I joined the OpenAI Academy this week. a bit late i have to admit... My goal was practical: learn to create custom GPTs for drafting emails, designing quizzes, and navigating policymaking structures. But amongst the treasures I found I realized that prompt engineering is a skill worth reexploring. It isn't just a technical skill—it's a thinking skill. It forces you to structure tasks clearly, provide context pre

By Alan Hardacre, PhD Co-Founder Advocacy Academy, Advocacy Strategy As AI becomes increasingly integral to the world of Public Affairs, a subtle yet significant challenge is emerging—not around whether to adopt AI or indeed for what to use it, but how it's being adopted internally. My recent work with clients reveals a consistent pattern: AI usage often begins and remains at the individual level, rarely maturing into fully integrated team or organisational capabilities. This

By Alan Hardacre, PhD Co-Founder Advocacy Academy, Advocacy Strategy Insights from the “Internal Side of Public Affairs” Webinar Last...

By Paul Shotton, Co-founder Advocacy Strategy Two stories caught my attention this week. The first, from Le Monde  (7 October 2025),...

Stefan Borst, Senior Partner Advocacy Strategy In Brussels, Washington, and every other capital where policy meets profit, “access” still...

Alan Hardacre, PhD Co-Founder Advocacy Academy, Advocacy Strategy In Public Affairs the structure of a team is critical. I have, in the...

Stefan Borst, Senior Partner Advocacy Strategy In many boardrooms, Public Affairs (PA) is still regarded as a side activity - an...

When working with large language models, outputs can quickly become vague, verbose, or inconsistent. A template counters that by forcing...

Alan Hardacre, PhD Co-Founder Advocacy Academy, Advocacy Strategy In previous posts of the  Internal Side of Public Affairs  series, I...

Stefan Borst, Senior Partner Advocacy Strategy Ten years ago, the description of the perfect Public Affairs leader was simple enough:...

Everyone wants the benefits of AI in public affairs, but very few want to talk about the boring bit: workflows and SOPs. Yet without...

When I run workshops on AI in public affairs, I often start with a simple question: “To what extent are you already using AI in your...

Alan Hardacre, PhD Co-Founder Advocacy Academy, Advocacy Strategy When I wrote the first posts in this series, I didn’t anticipate...

Stefan Borst, Senior Partner Advocacy Strategy Policy remains the last unmanaged corporate risk. Yet today it is one of the biggest...

Alan Hardacre, PhD Co-Founder Advocacy Academy, Advocacy Strategy The functions  Communications  and  Public Affairs  rarely ever mean...

Whether I'm working with corporate government relations teams, trade associations, or independent consultants, there's a palpable sense...