The difficulty of reaching practitioners and experts is one of the main challenges faced by early-career researchers in particular, and one that can overshadow fieldwork experiences and attempts to produce new knowledge. While researchers might feel that they are being ignored or treated as a nuisance by experts, the latter often have a different view of researchers’ attempt to reach […]
Category: NGOs
Five lessons for researchers who want to collaborate with governments and development organisations but avoid the common pitfalls
The appeal of collaborating with a government agency, or an organisation funded by one, seems obvious. It provides researchers with much needed resources and information, while also offering practitioners and policymakers a way of generating the evidence needed to design better programmes. In practice, however, it’s not always easy to make collaborative research work well. Susan Dodsworth and Nic Cheeseman […]
Never mind the policymakers, a more nuanced understanding of the diverse roles in change processes is required
Funding bids, blogs, academic papers, and policy briefs are awash with references to the “policymaker” as the primary audience for research and evidence. But this term means very little when you consider the diversity of policy actors, practitioners, donors, and activists. James Georgalakis argues researchers need to acquire a more nuanced understanding of their audiences’ diverse roles in change processes. […]
Think tanks can transform into the standard-setters and arbiters of quality of 21st century policy analysis
In recent years, think tanks have been beset by financial constraints, increased competition, and, more recently, a growing questioning of, and popular dissatisfaction with, the role of the ‘expert’ itself. Marcos Gonzalez Hernando, Diane Stone and Hartwig Pautz examine each of these challenges and find that, at a time of huge over-supply of (occasionally dubious) evidence and policy analysis from […]
Five tips for doing research with schools, charities and NGOs
Conducting research on children, young people and learning often requires access to and help from schools, charities or NGOs. Alicia Blum-Ross draws on both struggles and success from previous projects with learning institutions and presents five key strategies to build meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships. You are a busy researcher, interested in children, young people and learning. They are a (probably even busier) NGO, charity […]
Building bridges in development: Five recommendations to connect the islands of research, policy and practice.
Elizabeth Harrison, Eleanor Jew, Thomas Smith, Iqbal Ahmed and Sarah Peck present the recommendations from a recent conference for early-career researchers on bridging the gap in development research, policy and practice. Participants were encouraged to consider partnership-based solutions to development problems. From having a realistic understanding of intended outcomes to formulating relevant research questions, constructive debate took place on how best […]