Policymaking – Integration and Implementation Insights

Six tips for using research to influence policy

September 9, 2025

By David R. Garcia.

david-garcia — David R. Garcia (biography)

How can academics, researchers, and educators become skilled at the craft of engaging with policy makers? Who should they aim to engage with and what are some key factors in engaging effectively?

Based on my experiences as a US legislative staffer, state policy director, statewide political candidate and professor, here are my six best tips.

Tip #1: Be prepared to work with politicians. Yes, politicians

In academic contexts, “policymaker” is an ill-defined term that is often applied to all policy actors, and does not account for relevant distinctions between different policy actors.

What policy makers want from research

June 10, 2025June 3, 2025

Edited by Gabriele Bammer.

editors-addition_research-implementation

What do policy makers find useful or problematic about research and the way in which it is delivered? How would they like to see research presented to them?

In 2003 R. John Gregrich, then Chief of the Treatment Branch, Office of Demand Reduction, Office of National Drug Control Policy, Executive Office of the President, Washington, DC, USA, laid out a number of suggestions for researchers about more effectively interacting with policy makers. The description here has been generalised beyond alcohol and other drugs policy.

Seven tips for the general presentation of research findings

1. Research is often inaccessible to policy makers.
Research findings can be both hard to find and hard to understand; in particular the language and format of peer-reviewed publications demand more effort than is warranted from policy makers.

Harnessing the collision of four ways of knowing

May 27, 2025

By Adrian Wolfberg.

How can solving today’s most complex challenges reckon with four fundamentally different ways of knowing? How can the collision of their distinct epistemic strengths and blind spots be harnessed for innovation in threat assessment and decision-making on complex problems?

Let me unpack these four ways of knowing and how they shape, support, and sometimes undermine each other. Here, I use the example of climate security intelligence, but the insights and lessons are likely to apply to a wider range of complex societal and environmental issues. The four ways of knowing are:

Scientific knowledge from the physical sciences
Scientific knowledge from the social sciences
Judgment under uncertainty by knowledge-producing professionals
Practical decision-making by practitioners who are senior executives.

Three key strategies enabling artificial intelligence to bridge inequities

April 8, 2025

By Kerstin Nothnagel.

With artificial intelligence transforming many aspects of society, from healthcare to education to economic development, how can it be used to reduce rather than perpetuate inequalities? In particular, given that artificial intelligence can widen gaps by exacerbating existing inequalities through biased datasets, lack of infrastructure, and limited access to resources, how can the benefits of artificial intelligence be brought into the reach of low-income nations and marginalised communities? What practical steps can be taken to ensure artificial intelligence is developed and applied in a way that is inclusive and benefits everyone?

My work has been in the health field, but the findings are likely to be more broadly applicable. I suggest three strategies that would enable artificial intelligence to reduce inequities. The first two are key contributions that researchers can make. The third is a call to policy makers and funders. An example is provided for each strategy.

The enablers of effective knowledge exchange between science and policy

January 14, 2025January 14, 2025

By Vivian Nguyen and Chris Cvitanovic.

authors_vivian-nguyen_chris-cvitanovic — 1. Vivian Nguyen (biography)
2. Chris Cvitanovic (biography)

What are the practical enabling conditions necessary for effectively implementing strategies to enhance knowledge exchange at the science-policy interface?

To address this question, we undertook a comprehensive and global review of the published literature in the field of environmental management. Specifically, following established scoping review protocols, we examined 56 empirical case studies that document enablers of effective knowledge exchange between science and policy. By doing so, we also identified and provided actionable insights that can help anyone working at the interface of science and policy to enhance their knowledge exchange efforts, ultimately leading to more impactful and desirable outcomes, and ensuring that the benefits of knowledge exchange efforts outweigh the cost of implementation.

Five questions for considering political context

March 26, 2024

Edited by Gabriele Bammer

editors-addition_political-context

How can researchers rapidly assess the political and institutional environment in which they are trying to exert influence? Why does understanding context matter?

Developing a rich, detailed understanding of the political environment in which a problem needs to be addressed can be a never-ending research project, not only because of the depth of scholarship that can be brought to bear, but also because political environments are often unstable and rapidly-changing. Few research projects have the luxury of large budgets and long time horizons in which to fully comprehend the environments that they seek to influence. Instead, practical rapid assessment tools can be valuable and improve the effectiveness of research input and actions.

One such tool for rapidly assessing political context was published in 2014 as part of the Rapid Outcome Mapping Approach: A Guide to Policy Engagement and Influence by John Young and colleagues and a modified version is reproduced here.

How science thought leadership enhances knowledge exchange

March 5, 2024March 5, 2024

By Stefan Kaufman and Anthony Boxshall

stefan-kaufman_anthony-boxshall — 1. Stefan Kaufman (biography)
2. Anthony Boxshall (biography)

What is science thought leadership? What characterises science thought leadership and leaders? How does science thought leadership offer opportunities for researchers to participate in knowledge exchange?

Most examinations of knowledge exchange focus on the researchers and/or the decision makers, while the role of experts and intermediaries who are internal to the decision making process, but not the decision makers themselves, has largely been ignored. It is these internal experts and intermediaries that we refer to as science thought leaders.

Specifically, for us “science thought leadership” is “when people using, brokering or providing evidence are (simultaneously): influential, credible and valued in supporting decision making in their organization and its context” (Kaufman and Boxshall, 2023).

We found that science thought leadership has the following 11 characteristics, grouped into four categories:

Designing a rapid participatory scenario planning process

January 30, 2024January 30, 2024

By Giles Thomson and Varvara Nikulina

authors_giles-thomson_varvara-nikulina — 1. Giles Thomson (biography)
2. Varvara Nikulina (biography)

How can transdisciplinary researchers efficiently and effectively support diverse and time-poor actors in participatory scenario planning processes?

Scenario planning is a useful tool for policy development, especially for contexts with high uncertainty and complexity as described by Bonnie McBain in her i2Insights contribution, Designing scenarios to guide robust decisions. However, participatory scenario planning takes time, as pointed out by Maike Hamann and colleagues in their i2Insights contribution, Participatory scenario planning.

To address this challenge, we designed, tested and evaluated a rapid scenario planning method for a regional sustainability transition. In this case, the regional authority (host organization) wanted to increase collaboration and strengthen the link between municipal spatial planning and regional development by building consensus on the region’s most important development issues over a 30-year horizon to 2050.

Challenges in knowledge translation: A Global South perspective

January 23, 2024January 23, 2024

By Fajri Siregar

How is knowledge translation the same between the Global South and the Global North? What are the particular challenges in the Global South? How should future support be focused in the Global South and what, in particular, can funders do?

Common knowledge translation mechanisms

The impact of the political system on the basic mechanisms of evidence use are quite alike globally. Whether one works in a country of the Global South or North, one needs to identify influential actors to engage, the right channels to lobby, the most effective means of communication, and the right policy that needs changing. In this sense, researchers all over the world face the same struggles.

There is also a growing trend in both the Global South and North to eliminate boundaries between the realms of science and the public.

Tips for influencing government policy with research

December 5, 2023

By John Thwaites

Considering three questions can help researchers interested in better use of evidence in government policy making:

how is evidence used by politicians?
why is best evidence not always followed?
what can be done to improve the likelihood that evidence will inform policy?

How evidence is used by politicians

It is useful to start with an appreciation that politicians look to many forms of evidence other than academic research, including the grey literature, government reports, reports from Royal commissions, various other forms of expert evidence (including the politician’s favourite expert), the experience of citizens, anecdotal evidence, reports from interested parties produced by consultants, the media and Google searches.

Six lessons for connecting evidence to policy and practice in the Global South

August 8, 2023July 11, 2023

By Fréjus Thoto

How can the ecosystem of evidence use in policy and practice work better in Global South countries such as Benin?

Here I provide six lessons drawn from activities undertaken by the African Center for Equitable Development (ACED), a non-profit think-and-do tank, located in Benin, West Africa. Our focus has been on the food and nutrition security sector.

Lesson 1: Access to policy-relevant evidence is still a big challenge

There is still much work to do in order to ensure that timely and policy-relevant evidence is produced and accessible to users. We have developed a national platform to consolidate and display the available statistical data, research findings, and evaluation findings. However, a platform alone is not enough, and research agenda setting, research-policy dialogues and other strategic activities are required.

Lesson 2: Involve governments at all levels in evidence-informed policymaking processes

Institutionalizing evidence-informed policy-making in Latin America and the Caribbean / Institucionalizando la toma de decisiones informadas por evidencias en Latinoamérica y el Caribe/ Institucionalizando a formulação de políticas informadas em evidências na América Latina e Caribe

November 19, 2025May 9, 2023

By Directors and Coordinators of the Latin American and the Caribbean Evidence Hub

authors_directors-coordinators-latin-american-and-caribbean-evidence-hub — Author biographies

A Spanish version and a Portuguese version of this post are available

How is the routine use of evidence in policy in Latin America and the Caribbean progressing? How is it being institutionalized?

We provide a brief history of key initiatives to institutionalize evidence-informed policy making mechanisms in the region.Research and policy interface

* The Latin American and the Caribbean Evidence Hub is an interdisciplinary and trilingual team who work together to create a dynamic and diverse community that articulates and mobilizes producers, intermediaries and users of knowledge in the region for decision making informed by the best available evidence. In 2022, it organized workshops with multi-country stakeholders and a regional meeting.