Knowledge brokers, entrepreneurs and markets

This paper expands the discussion of knowledge brokerage by connecting it to long-standing debates within the social sciences about the effective transmission of scientifically produced knowledge into the worlds of policy and practice. This longer-term perspective raises some different questions about intermediary roles which are then tested against quantitative data on the attitudes of the producers of social science knowledge and some in-depth qualitative information about the use of social science knowledge by a select number of policy actors. The paper concludes with some proposals for the reconceptualisation of knowledge brokerage as one set of contributions within a larger knowledge market.</jats:p

A systematic review of frameworks for the interrelationships of mental health evidence and policy in low- and middle-income countries

Background: The interrelationships between research evidence and policy-making are complex. Different theoretical frameworks exist to explain general evidence–policy interactions. One largely unexplored element of these interrelationships is how evidence interrelates with, and influences, policy/political agenda-setting. This review aims to identify the elements and processes of theories, frameworks and models on interrelationships of research evidence and health policy-making, with a focus on actionability and agenda-setting in the context of mental health in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Methods: A systematic review of theories was conducted based on the BeHeMOTh search method, using a tested and refined search strategy. Nine electronic databases and other relevant sources were searched for peer-reviewed and grey literature. Two reviewers screened the abstracts, reviewed full-text articles, extracted data and performed quality assessments. Analysis was based on a thematic analysis. The included papers had to present an actionable theoretical framework/model on evidence and policy interrelationships, such as knowledge translation or evidence-based policy, specifically target the agenda-setting process, focus on mental health, be from LMICs and published in English. Results: From 236 publications included in the full text analysis, no studies fully complied with our inclusion criteria. Widening the focus by leaving out ‘agenda-setting’, we included ten studies, four of which had unique conceptual frameworks focusing on mental health and LMICs but not agenda-setting. The four analysed frameworks confirmed research gaps from LMICs and mental health, and a lack of focus on agenda-setting. Frameworks and models from other health and policy areas provide interesting conceptual approaches and lessons with regards to agenda-setting. Conclusion: Our systematic review identified frameworks on evidence and policy interrelations that differ in their elements and processes. No framework fulfilled all inclusion criteria. Four actionable frameworks are applicable to mental health and LMICs, but none specifically target agenda-setting. We have identified agenda-setting as a research theory gap in the context of mental health knowledge translation in LMICs. Frameworks from other health/policy areas could offer lessons on agenda-setting and new approaches for creating policy impact for mental health and to tackle the translational gap in LMICs

The governance of social science and everyday epistemology

Research on the governance of publicly funded research does not recognize that social science and ‘science’ are distinct activities. Neither does it recognize that regulating research policy in purely science and technology terms has undesirable consequences for the social sciences – intended or otherwise. This paper seeks to correct these omissions and considers the governance of social science through the example of regulating ‘everyday epistemology’ at the science policy level. The British research council system is used in order to demonstrate how social science has been politically constructed as a legitimate enterprise for public funding. We find that social science is in fact regulated by non‐social scientists. The result is that social science, seen as a square peg, is forced into the round hole of natural scientific thinking. When this policy is translated into governance structures it creates a ‘slave social science’ and subverts the role of social science as social science

Whose Agency? Looking Forward to the Virtual Research Council

This paper has three parallel ambitions: to consider the potential impact of large-scale use of modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) through the device of an imagined ‘virtual’ research council (VRC); to discuss this imagined future from the principal-agent perspective of research councils as intermediary agencies; and to draw conclusions for the future of research funding institutions, and the influences operating upon them. It proposes some generic characteristics of today's research councils, and blends those with leading-edge ICTs to create the prospect of an intermediary research funding agency, making full use of electronic communication. This VRC emerges with important differences from today's national research councils, while retaining underlying core characteristics. It will be more effectively connected to applicants, clients, advisers, stakeholders and ministries. The time taken for decisions and their communication will be hugely reduced. It will have the capacity to base strategic and individual funding decisions on more and better information. There will be new opportunities to monitor and evaluate progress, outcomes and impact. Operating costs can be reduced, primarily through savings on travel and subsistence for its committee advisers. It will be restructured to adjust to the changing internal skill base and to take advantage of opportunities for new interactions with its environment. The persistent characteristics include dependence on the environment for the flow of new ideas, a mix of responsive and priority funding, and the use of some version of peer review as the main basis for funding decisions. The paper then uses a principal-agent perspective to analyse four dimensions of this imagined future - delegation, connectivity, decision uncertainty, and the dynamics of innovation and influence. It ends with some conclusions about the future development of research councils, about their use of modern ICTs, and about the other influences that will shape their future

Baby or Bathwater: how much of current public engagement should we throw out?

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Doors and boundaries: A recent history of the relationship between research and practice in UK organizational and management research

This article looks at a selection of significant episodes in the history of organizational and management research, and the policies in this field of the UK Social Science Research Council. The episodes begin in the Council's early days in the mid-1960s, and run through its high-profile efforts to improve management research at the end of the 1980s to the start of a new initiative sanctioned by the Council in 2001. They have been chosen because they are important milestones in the development of the field. They also illustrate a central issue which has been evident throughout the period: whether management research should be framed as essentially different or merely seen as carrying some sort of deficit or remedial gap with respect to the other 'founding disciplines'. They also illustrate an important dilemma facing the funding agency in its longstanding if erratic attempts to engage with the processes through which social science research is used�-�namely the tension between the goals and rhetoric of excellence and relevance. One episode which illustrates these issues particularly well is that of the Open Door Scheme, a radical SSRC innovation in the 1970s which encouraged non-academic participation in the selection of management research topics. Changes within the funding agency over the same period are crucial for this story. We reflect on their relevance for the episodic developments within management research. From these points of enquiry, we derive a historical, institutional analysis of the interactions between public research funding and management research, of the interplay between the worlds of practice and research, and the ways in which a dialectic has been constructed between concepts of use and relevance, on the one hand, and excellence and rigour on the other.Research Policy, User Engagement, Relevance, Disciplinary Rigour, Public Funding, Social Science, Management Research,