The Age Old Policy Research Divide
Author: Margaret Clark
The age old policy- research divide. Is there a role for researcher as policy broker? And does it open up new spaces for not for profit advocacy groups?
This is very provocative food for thought for those intending to participate in the ACE National Conference Education Equity - Connecting for change.
In an article in the Australian called "Seen but not heard" (4 May 2011) by Peter Shergold (former head of Prime Minister and Cabinet) (PM&C) reports on an event designed to examine the interface of university research and public policy.
It was apparently unapologetically intended to persuade parliamentarians and senior bureaucrats of the value of academic research to public policy.
According to Shergold the views expressed by the current PM&C incumbent, Terry Moran, were somewhat jaundiced. "Academic work, he contested, was often "lost in translation" because it was inaccessible, indigestible and obscure. Too often it was unresponsive to the immediate needs of governments. By the time research was published it was out of date".
While acknowledging that when in the same position he had expressed similar views, Shergold believes there ought to be a way to improve this given we are in an era when all sides of politics genuflect before the altar of "evidence-based" policy.
He describes the stand-off as mutual:
"I have come across many academics who tell me they are working in areas of public policy of the utmost importance -- health care, housing need, workforce participation, early childhood development -- yet shuffle uncomfortably when I ask exactly what policy changes they would introduce to address the problems they have so carefully analysed. There is a tendency to perceive it is the responsibility of the public policy-makers to read their published work and incorporate their findings within policy. Most of their research, after all, is freely available as a public good.
Of course, culture rubs two ways. Administrators, too, often think that "analytical and conceptual skills", a standard criteria of executive leadership in public services, involve incorporating those ideas of academics that support the policy direction in which the government is already heading. It is easier than talking to academics who, it appears to them, display a difficult combination of intellectual combativeness and unwillingness to compromise with a frustrating tendency to qualify every assertion that might, unadorned, provide independent testament to the virtue of policy intent."
He also notes that the most important barriers are structural disincentives:
Some academics do set aside time to become consultants to government. It's a concrete way to contribute to policy. Yet too often they discover that policy research undertaken and funded by government agencies has restrictions placed on its publication. The policy document that incorporates their work sometimes gives inadequate recognition to the contribution. Certainly they are rarely given an opportunity to engage in the policy discussions that eventuate from the work. The public servants who have contracted the work are frequently perceived as unnecessarily intrusive, heavy-handed and risk-averse. I have spoken to many academic colleagues who, commissioned to deliver policy research for government, feel they have supped with the devil. Next time they are invited to dine they'll carry a longer spoon.
Consider the importance attached to Excellence for Research in Australia, a management initiative introduced by the Rudd government. Its intent is to promote the creation of new knowledge. Ratings, of individuals and of institutions, are based on academic publication (with ranked journals rated downwards from A* to C). Conference presentations can also be counted. Non-traditional research outputs, such as government policy papers, can be submitted only where peer review is used.
Given the ranking of universities will be used to decide the future allocation of research funding, it's scarcely surprising that a direct contribution to public policy is generally not viewed highly by most academics or the universities in which they work. Nor is the task of spending valuable time translating research to the broader public.
But Shergold goes on to argue that those who identify the key problem as the politicization of the agenda do not understand the necessary complexity of policy making - it is inherently political and has always been thus. To see it as being different in some ahlycon previous are is to misunderstand that "the creation of public policy is not a straightforward linear path from research evidence to policy announcement. Instead, it is an iterative process in which policy outcomes are driven by unexpected political opportunity and stymied by political intransigence and risk aversion.
.... Policy on the funding of higher education, development of an emissions trading scheme or introduction of welfare-to-work reforms were as dependent on emotional intelligence as intellectual inquiry. It was a matter of using evidence to build alliances and negotiate compromises to create political will and public support."
Academics, ... are rarely attracted to such a dirty world.
In spite of this Shergold argues that there are new opportunities emerging for the academic as knowledge broker. As an example of these new opportunities Shergold looks at the increasingly important role of not for profits who are becoming increasingly influential through their research and advocacy agenda
Most of these not-for-profit organisations lobby on behalf of those to whom they deliver services. Driven by mission, they see themselves as necessarily involved in the advocacy of public policy. For many academics the opportunity to work with such organisations, several of which already have substantial research capacity, may provide a more comfortable if less direct means of contributing to public policy.
I hope so he concludes "Research findings deserve more than A* ratings. They need to influence the making of public policy
"for those who recognise the public policy importance of their work and wish to pursue it, there needs to be greater recognition of the value attached to their efforts to translate the implications of their research for evidence-based policy. Public servants and academics need to work on tailoring research to the choices facing decision-makers.
Australian university researchers, from the application of science to the "public discourse" of the humanities, have things to say of profound importance to the nation's policy settings. It would be a tragedy if it were left to others to broker their knowledge on their behalf. The ability to contribute to public policy needs to be extolled as one crucial manifestation of academic expertise, to be valued and rewarded. Only then will the evidence that underpins policy become more persuasive."