Relationships – Page 2 – Integration and Implementation Insights

Ten insights on the interplay between evidence and policy

April 15, 2022August 11, 2020

By Kat Smith and Paul Cairney

authors_kat-smith_paul-cairney — 1. Kat Smith (biography)
2. Paul Cairney (biography)

How can we improve the way we think about the relationship between evidence and policy? What are the key insights that existing research provides?

1. Evidence does not tell us what to do

It helps reduce uncertainty, but does not tell us how we should interpret problems or what to do about them.

2. There is no such thing as ‘the evidence’

Instead, there is a large number of researchers with different backgrounds, making different assumptions, asking different questions, using different methods, and addressing different problems.

Implementation during a time of crisis: The critical role of trusting relationships

September 7, 2022May 12, 2020

By Allison Metz

author-alison-metz — Allison Metz (biography)

Are there lessons we can learn from the current response of service systems which have galvanized into action to meet the needs of children and families during the COVID-19 pandemic? How does the response of service systems affect our hypotheses about how change happens at scale?

In my professional role providing implementation support to public service systems, I’ve observed these systems responding to the COVID-19 pandemic with urgency and agility. The urgency is to be expected, but the agility has inspired me.

The agility runs counter to accepted wisdom in implementation science that implementation takes time. Depending on the scope and complexity of the change effort, it can take up to five years for initiatives to reach full implementation.

A framework to evaluate the impacts of research on policy and practice

August 11, 2023March 3, 2020

By Laura Meagher and David Edwards

authors_laura-meagher_david-edwards — 1. Laura Meagher (biography)
2. David Edwards (biography)

What is meant by impact generation and how can it be facilitated, captured and shared? How can researchers be empowered to think beyond ‘instrumental’ impact and identify other changes generated by their work? How can the cloud of complexity be dispersed so that numerous factors affecting development of impacts can be seen? How can a way be opened for researchers to step back and reflect critically on what happened and what could be improved in the future? How can research teams and stakeholders translate isolated examples of impact and causes of impact into narratives for both learning and dissemination?

We have developed a framework to evaluate research impact in a way that addresses these questions. It has been piloted on 12 case studies led by Forest Research, a government research agency in UK (Edwards and Meagher 2019) and is likely to be useful to researchers more generally, perhaps especially but not exclusively those in applied fields. To date the framework has been found to be user-friendly and fit for purpose.

Transdisciplinary action research: A guiding framework for collaboration

April 4, 2023February 18, 2020

By Steven Lam, Michelle Thompson, Kathleen Johnson, Cameron Fioret and Sarah Hargreaves

authors_steven-lam_michelle-thompson_kathleen-johnson_cameron-fioret_sarah-hargreaves — 1. Steven Lam; 2. Michelle Thompson; 3. Kathleen Johnson; 4. Cameron Fioret; 5. Sarah Hargreaves (biographies)

How can graduate students work productively with each other and community partners? Many researchers and practitioners are engaging in transdisciplinarity, yet there is surprisingly little critical reflection about the processes and outcomes of transdisciplinarity, particularly from the perspectives of graduate students and community partners who are increasingly involved.

Our group of four graduate students from the University of Guelph and one community partner from the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario, reflect on our experiences of working together toward community food security in Canada, especially producing a guidebook for farmer-led research (Fioret et al. 2018). As none of us had previously worked together, nor shared any disciplines in common, we found it essential to first develop a guiding framework for collaboration. Our thinking combined the following key principles from action research and transdisciplinarity:

reflexivity,
participation and partnership,
methods and process, and
integration.

Facilitating serendipity for interdisciplinary research

August 11, 2023January 21, 2020

By Catherine Lyall

author-catherine-lyall — Catherine Lyall (biography)

How can institutions facilitate the serendipitous encounters that so often appear to characterise interdisciplinary careers? Is there an inherent hypocrisy in university leaders, research funders and policymakers claiming that they want to facilitate interdisciplinarity and then not creating the conditions that experienced interdisciplinarians say they need in order to foster this style of working?

Here I examine the importance of informal interactions, physical locations, the ‘small stuff’ and ‘slow research.’ I draw on interviews with British academics (at various career stages from postdoc to professor) whose doctoral studies had been funded by deliberately interdisciplinary studentship schemes. For more detail, including the sources of the quotations, see Lyall (2019).

Informality is crucial

Finding the time and space for informal discussions with colleagues is critical.

Good practice in community-based participatory processes in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research

August 2, 2023December 10, 2019

By Jan Chapman, Alyson Wright, Nadine Hunt and Bobby Maher

authors_jan-chapman_alyson-wright_nadine-hunt_bobby-maher — 1. Jan Chapman (biography)
2. Alyson Wright (biography)
3. Nadine Hunt (biography)
4. Bobby Maher (biography)

How can participatory process in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities be made adaptable and flexible? How can theoretical frameworks take into account the cultural and geographical complexities of communities and their contexts?

Here we provide five key principles that we have found useful in engaging communities in the Mayi Kuwayu Study (https://mkstudy.com.au/).These include: community decision-making; involvement in study governance; community capacity development; effective communications; and, long-term and multi-engagement processes.

Community decision-making

A key principle is to seek community endorsement and decision-making from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander governance groups on their community’s participation in the study.

The role of persistence in influencing policy with research

August 11, 2023October 29, 2019

By David McDonald

Author - David McDonald — David McDonald (biography)

Seeking to influence policy with our research is difficult. Sometimes we feel that it is too hard, we are not achieving our goals fast enough, and we really should give up and find easier ways of operating. However, persistence, rather than giving up, seems to be a characteristic of those of us working in this domain!

What do we mean by persistence? A good dictionary definition is ‘continuing firmly, especially despite obstacles and protests’. Does that sound familiar: facing obstacles to doing high-quality implementation work, and protests from colleagues who do not share our perceptions of the value of working in this manner?

Learning about persistence from decades of experience at the ODI

The London-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI) has worked for decades in developing concepts, processes and tools to help researchers and others work more effectively at the research/policy interfaces, particularly regarding international development and humanitarian issues.

Ten things to know about how to influence policy with research

November 8, 2023May 7, 2019

By Helen Tilley, Louise Shaxson, John Young, and Louise Ball

authors_helen-tilley_louise-shaxson_john-young_louise-ball — 1. Helen Tilley (biography)
2. Louise Shaxson (biography)
3. John Young (biography)
4. Louise Ball (biography)

How can research influence public policy so that it is based on the best-available evidence? What different ways of working are required of researchers? Here are 10 things researchers from the UK’s Overseas Development Institute have found helpful.

1. Know what you want to influence

Being clear about the policy issue, theme or process you want to change is the first step to effective policy influencing. Are you looking to influence legislation, or a change in government policy? You might want to encourage greater investment in a certain programme or approach, or a change in practice. You might want to influence perceptions or attitudes, or the language people use around an issue.

2. Know who you want to influence

Who has the power to enact a change in a policy process or change the debate on an issue?

Collaboration and team science: Top ten take aways

June 21, 2022July 24, 2018

By L. Michelle Bennett and Christophe Marchand

What are the key lessons for building a successful collaborative team? A new version of the Collaboration and Team Science Field Guide (Bennett et al., 2018) provides ten top take aways:

1. TRUST
It is almost impossible to imagine a successful collaboration without trust. Trust provides the foundation for a team. Trust is necessary for establishing other aspects of a successful collaboration such as psychological safety, candid conversation, a positive team dynamic, and successful conflict management.

How is transformative knowledge ‘co-produced’?

January 7, 2022April 3, 2018

By Andy Stirling, Adrian Ely and Fiona Marshall

It’s often said that knowledge to tackle big problems in the world – food, water, climate, energy, biodiversity, disease and war – has to be ‘co-produced’. Tackling these problems is not just about solving ‘grand challenges’ with big solutions, it’s also about grappling with the underlying causal social and political drivers. But what does co-production actually mean, and how can it help to create knowledge that leads to real transformation?

Here’s how we at the Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability (STEPS) Centre approach this challenge of co-production.

Five principles of holistic science communication

April 17, 2020February 20, 2018

By Suzi Spitzer

How can we effectively engage in the practice and art of science communication to increase both public understanding and public impact of our science? Here I present five principles based on what I learned at the Science of Science Communication III Sackler Colloquium at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC in November 2017.

1. Assemble a diverse and interdisciplinary team

Scientists should recognize that while they may be an expert on a particular facet of a complex problem, they may not be qualified to serve as an expert on all aspects of the problem. Therefore, scientists and communicators should collaborate to form interdisciplinary scientific teams to best address complex issues.
Science is like any other good or service—it must be strategically communicated if we want members of the public to accept, use, or support it in their daily lives. Thus, research scientists need to partner with content creators and practitioners in order to effectively share and “sell” scientific results.
Collaboration often improves decision making and problem solving processes. People have diverse cognitive models that affect the way each of us sees the world and how we understand or resolve problems. Adequate “thought world diversity” can help teams create and communicate science that is more creative, representative of a wider population, and more broadly applicable.

Responsive research – simple, right? The AskFuse case study

July 13, 2021July 11, 2017

By Rosemary Rushmer

Researchers are constantly being challenged to demonstrate that their research can make a difference and has impact. Practice and policy partners are similarly challenged to demonstrate that their decisions and activity are informed by the evidence base. It sounds like all we need to do is join the two groups together – simple, right?

In Fuse (the Centre for Translational Research in Public Health, www.fuse.ac.uk) we wanted to do exactly that. We wanted to supply the evidence that end-users said they wanted (supply and demand), and make it easy for them to access and use research evidence.

Yet, we knew that current approaches to supplying evidence (briefs, guidelines, publications) do not work as well as we once thought they did. It needed a re-think…