Linking research, policy and livelihoods: challenges and contradictions

This research brief explores the linkages between research and policy-making and is based on a review of 35 Natural Resources Systems Programmes (NRSP). The brief argues that for research to influence policy both researchers and those who fund research need to better understand the complex and dynamic world of policy and policy processes.

The paper finds that power and politics are crucial in policy processes, but the review revealed that few researchers attempt to analyse the power dynamics of the natural resource management processes they investigate.

The brief also highlights other key characteristics of research processes that influence the likelihood that research findings will influence policy processes. These include:

• reflexive practices on the part of researchers
• building networks and providing support for stakeholder learning, as well as time, continuity and commitment
• the legal frameworks governing resource access and tenure
• decentralisation does not always have a positive effect on natural resource management policy and practice