• Strengthen evidence-based policy making

Strengthen evidence-based policy making

This paper reviews current models of knowledge utilisation and policy making, as well as other literature that sheds light on the research/policy linkages, and offers an integrated approach to help investigate further.

The authors argue that ideas percolate into development discourse and people learn about how the world is ordered through their practical experience of it. The authors create a three-dimensional approach – consisting of context, links and evidence – to assist the investigation into the impact of research on policy. The approach combines political interests, formations of actors, and discourses; takes account of the role played by wider civil society and ‘street bureaucrats’, and borrows ideas from psychology and marketing.

The authors recommend a historical, contextual and comparative methodology, the aim of which would be to create a narrative of policy continuity and change and analyse the impact of research on policy processes in particular areas. The following theoretical issues are likely to be important in the analysis:

• The context: politics and institutions
• Evidence: credibility and communication
• Links: influence and legitimacy

The authors hypothesise that research is more likely to contribute to evidence-based policy making that aims to reduce poverty, alleviate suffering or save lives if:

• it fits within the political and institutional limits and pressures of policy makers, and resonates with their ideological assumptions, or sufficient pressure is exerted to challenge those limits
• researchers and policy makers share particular kinds of networks and develop chains of legitimacy for particular policy areas
• outputs are based on local involvement and credible evidence and are communicated via the most appropriate communicators, channels, style, format and timing

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