What works in enabling research use in decision making in policy and practice?
The What Works Centre for Wellbeing has partnered with the Wellcome Trust, the Alliance for Useful Evidence and the EPPI-Centre at UCL to understand how research evidence can best be used in decision-making.
- evidence – the development and use of a sound evidence base
- politics – understanding and management of the political context
- delivery – planning and clarity, right from the outset, as to how the policy will be delivered
This study, and the What Works Centres, are focused on better development and use of a sound evidence base in government policy and other decision making. This project is intended to develop the evidence base for how we can do the evidence part of good policy effectively.
The study identified six types of activity used to support evidence informed decision making and looked at the evidence based that underpins them. The study team then looked at what other social science research suggests could be promising for supporting evidence informed decision making.
We are reviewing our plans and theory of change as a result of this study working with the wider What Works Network some of whom are doing trials in this area. We hope that these insights prove useful more widely and add to the evidence base in the field.
This project included:
- Two reviews by the EPPI-Centre
- a systematic review (a review of reviews) of this new field of research use
- a scoping review of what the wider social science literature tells us about the mechanisms for the use of research evidence in decision-making
- a summary policy report with the key findings with discussion and case studies by the Alliance for Useful Evidence
- a conference to explore what approaches work in enabling the use of research by policy makers, practitioners and members of the public in April 2016
For more info, questions and share ideas – email info@whatworkswellbeing.org
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- How to achieve more effective services: the evidence eco-system by Jonathan Shepherd for the What Works Network
- Research Use in Schools project by Education Endowment Foundation including RCT