Supporting evidence-informed policy and scrutiny: A consultation of UK research professionals

Access to reliable and timely information ensures that decision-makers can operate effectively. The motivations and challenges of parliamentarians and policy-makers in accessing evidence have been well documented in the policy literature. However, there has been little focus on research-providers. U...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2019-03, Vol.14 (3), p.e0214136-e0214136
Main Authors: Walker, Lindsay A, Lawrence, Natalia S, Chambers, Chris D, Wood, Marsha, Barnett, Julie, Durrant, Hannah, Pike, Lindsey, O'Grady, Gerard, Bestmann, Sven, Kythreotis, Andrew P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Biology and Life Sciences
Biomedical Research
Consultation
Decision Making
Female
Funding
Humans
Incentives
Information services
Internet
Knowledge
Male
Males
Multiculturalism & pluralism
People and places
Policy Making
Politics
Professionals
R&D
Research & development
Research and Analysis Methods
Researchers
Science Policy
Sex differences
Social Sciences
Supervision
Surveys and Questionnaires
United Kingdom
Workload
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Summary:Access to reliable and timely information ensures that decision-makers can operate effectively. The motivations and challenges of parliamentarians and policy-makers in accessing evidence have been well documented in the policy literature. However, there has been little focus on research-providers. Understanding both the demand- and the supply-side of research engagement is imperative to enhancing impactful interactions. Here, we examine the broader experiences, motivations and challenges of UK-based research professionals engaging with research-users relevant to policy-making and scrutiny in the UK using a nationwide online questionnaire. The context of the survey partly involved contributing to the UK Evidence Information Service (EIS), a proposed rapid match-making service to facilitate interaction between parliamentary arenas that use evidence and research-providers. Our findings reveal, at least for this sub-sample who responded, that there are gender-related differences in policy-related experience, motivations, incentives and challenges for research professionals to contribute to evidence-informed decision-making through initiatives such as the EIS. Male and female participants were equally likely to have policy experience; however, males reported both significantly broader engagement with the research-users included in the survey and significantly higher levels of engagement with each research-user. Reported incentives for engagement included understanding what the evidence will be used for, guidance on style and content of contribution, and acknowledgement of contributions by the policymaker or elected official. Female participants were significantly more likely to select the guidance-related options. The main reported barrier was workload. We discuss how academia-policy engagement initiatives can best address these issues in ways that enhance the integration of research evidence with policy and practice across the UK.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0214136