Researchers and Policymakers
One traditional complaint voiced by academic researchers is that their work is too often ignored by policymakers. This thesis can be summarised as follows - 'Government is not interested in the social sciences and does not listen to us; our work is consistently neglected by those who make decisions about public policy; consequently laws are based on political ideology rather than on objective studies.'
Maybe there was historically some validity to this argument, but the end result has been that researchers in general have failed to engage in a meaningful dialogue with policymakers. In fact, government depends upon receiving a flow of information from the public and private sectors. A well-known computer programming adage states 'garbage in, garbage out'. Decisions about public policy can similarly only be as good as the information on which they are based.
The present government has attempted explicitly to reach out to social science researchers, and to encourage more direct communication between academics and policymakers. While this relationship is inherently fraught with tensions, researchers should nonetheless be aware that they have the opportunity of sharing the results of their work with decision makers. To use a New Labour catchphrase, policy should be 'evidence based'.
In a major speech to an ESRC seminar in February 2000, David Blunkett (the Education and Employment Secretary) asserted that there is a more open door than ever before for academics in terms of influencing the policy agenda. Mr Blunkett called upon both researchers and policymakers to work together to ensure that official thinking on policy issues is informed by academic work.
"Social science should be at the heart of policymaking. We need a revolution in relations between government and the social research community - we need social scientists to help determine what works and why, and what types of policy initiatives are likely to be most effective. And we need better ways of ensuring that those who want this information can get it easily and quickly... Too often ideas are not openly discussed because of the fear of unhelpful press speculation, but if researchers become more street-wise in handling partial findings and politicians and civil servants are more relaxed about welcoming radical thinking, I am sure we can get it right."
This attitude is now beginning to permeate Whitehall and Westminster. Researchers will increasingly find that the government takes account of their work. For instance, the Department for Education and Employment has established a new Centre for Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice which will eventually hold a comprehensive database of research on education and employment issues. The Centre will use this data to undertake systematic reviews of research findings.
Moreover, there is now a focal point for the research community located at the very centre of government. The Centre for Management and Policy Studies, based in the Cabinet Office, is developing best practice guidelines for evidence-based decision making across all policy areas - covering practical strategies not only for the provision of information by researchers, but also on training for civil servants in how to interpret and apply academic evidence.
For researchers to maximise the potential impact of their work, they must ensure that politicians and civil servants are aware of their findings. This means learning how to communicate effectively with government, and discovering the entry points into the policymaking process. Some factors are worth stressing from the outset:
- Civil servants are more likely than politicians to be interested in 'pure' research. They tend to work in the same position for a number of years, and often specialise in very detailed and technical aspects of policy.
- Parliamentarians are generalists, who tend to focus on a handful of issues in which they are particularly interested. MPs and peers pay little attention to most of the representations they receive, and so it is crucial to begin by identifying precisely which politicians have already expressed an interest in the area of your research.
- Having identified these MPs and peers, remember that they will usually use research to the extent to which it impacts upon public policy in a practical sense. They are not necessarily engaged in a quest for objective truth, but rather are in search of information which can be used to strengthen their particular point of view.
- You should never simply write to all MPs - probably no more than 10 per cent of them will be actively concerned about the findings of your research.
- Finally, do not send a paper to any MP or civil servant without making it clear in the first paragraph of your covering letter that you are writing to them because you are aware of their previously expressed interest in the subject.
Keeping these elements in mind, the researcher must begin to develop an understanding of how the policymaking process operates. The first stage is to learn how to access the necessary information.