Since the term was popularised by Rittel and Webber in their seminal article, Dilemmas in a general theory of planning, the concept of ‘wicked problems’, or those that are resistant to optimal solutions, has posed a significant challenge to the creatio…
Category: Evidence for Policy
Policy citation databases offer new ways to understand the impact of social sciences research
Tracking the policy impact of academic research is notoriously difficult, especially when academics are not directly involved in policymaking processes. However, the recent development of tools to index and organise online policy documents has cast new…
Book Review: Politics and Expertise: How to Use Science in a Democratic Society by Zeynep Pamuk
In Politics and Expertise: How to Use Science in a Democratic Society, Zeynep Pamuk reimagines the relationship between democratic politics and scientific expertise, exploring the possibility of new political institutions that would make experts more a…
2021 In Review: Evidence for Policy
The need to link research based evidence to policy has arguably been more urgent and important in the last two years of the COVID-19 pandemic than it has ever been before. In the first of a series of review posts, we have brought together a selection o…
Storylistening: why narrative evidence matters for public reasoning and how to use it
As the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated narratives, qualitative or quantitative, can shape, guide and make sense of public policies. However, the way in which the listeners and readers of these narratives receive and engage with them is often taken a…
Connecting research to policy is complex, unpredictable and time consuming – so should we expect academics to do it on their own?
Earlier in the year the chief executive of UKRI, Dame Ottoline Leyser, argued that a research culture that prizes the figure of the ‘lone genius’ has stifled productive collaboration. Drawing on the experience of UCL’s Faculty of Engineering Sciences P…
Sociable (social) science – Crafting new relationships between research and government
The civil service represents a significant community of analysts and researchers, but their work can at times seem independent from that taking place within academia. Ben Hepworth describes how the UK’s Ministry of Justice has worked to reframe its rel…
Proving and Improving – Evaluating policy engagement is an opportunity for researchers and institutions to learn as well as demonstrate impact.
The challenges of evaluating the contribution of research to policy making are well documented. In this post Chris Roche, Alana Tomlin, Ujjwal Krishna and Will Pryor outline seven principles for effective monitoring, evaluation and learning for policy …
Analysts, Advocates and Applicators – Understanding and engaging with different actors in the evidence for policy movement
Superficially connecting evidence to policy might seem like singular process that brings together different actors towards a common end. However, drawing on a qualitative study of professionals in the evidence – policy field, Jasper Montana and James W…