Recent discourse about the impact of university research has focused on "what" research impact is and less on "how" it manifests. To explore these two questions, we draw on knowledge theory and build on the distinction between explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge. We propose that tacit knowledge and knowing are necessary…

The authors of this position paper argue that there is currently very little evidence-based practice in relation to learners with severe learning disabilities (SLD) and profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD), and that which there is, has often been badly used and/or abused. More specifically, we argue that relevant educational research…

Models of research use in education tend to focus on specific elements of education systems or underplay the complexity of system change. Within other public policy areas, notably health, more work has been undertaken to integrate systems thinking when considering knowledge mobilisation and research use. In this paper, we survey public policy…

The evaluation of research to allocate government funding to universities is now common across the globe. "The Research Excellence Framework," introduced in the UK in 2014, marked a major change by extending assessment beyond the 'quality' of published research to include its real-world 'impact'. Impact submissions were a key determinant…

This research focuses on how members of the UK Parliament engaged with evidence in relation to the policy decision leading to the Selective Schools Expansion Fund, a policy designed to enable the existing 163 English grammar schools to apply for additional funds to expand their intake. Although a small case study, the narrow focus provides a…

By any metric, the twentieth century university was a successful institution. However, in the twenty-first century, ongoing neoliberal educational reform has been accompanied by a growing epistemological crisis in the meaning and value of the humanities and social sciences (HaSS). Concerns have been expressed in two main forms. The governors of…

Background: Two UK academic centres were commissioned to provide a responsive rapid evidence synthesis service. The service covered topics identified by the National Institute for Health Research Health Services & Delivery Research (NIHR HSDR) programme as priorities for the National Health Service or to inform research commissioning. Aims and…

Interdisciplinary working plays an important role in achieving impact outside academia. One barrier to interdisciplinary working is the lack of mechanisms to assess contributions from outside the primary discipline. Positioning our research in debates about knowledge translation, we analyse the ability of narrative cases to assess the…

Engaging with primary researchers during qualitative secondary analysis is a practice much recommended but rarely written about. In this article, I reflect on my experience of crossing an imagined boundary between the discrete textual dataset and its creators, of acknowledging and engaging with those researchers who invested in constructing the…

This paper seeks to illuminate new perspectives on the concept of crisis in globalised higher education (HE) by focusing on knowledge generated by doctoral research. Doctoral research is a significant part of research and knowledge building in HE, particularly in science, and doctoral students contribute to the research capacity and knowledge…

This paper considers whether the impact agenda that has developed over the last decade in UK universities is likely to help create the conditions in which critical educational research makes a more visible difference to society. The UK audit of university research quality (the research excellence framework (REF) now includes an assessment of…

Despite claims that we now live in a post-truth society, it remains commonplace for policy makers to consult research evidence to increase the robustness of decision making. Few scholars of evidence-policy interfaces, however, have used legislatures as sites of study, despite the fact that they play a critical role in modern democracies. There is…

The need to demonstrate the impact of research has become an important issue in the Higher Education sector in the UK. This has been taken care of through the introduction of 'impact case studies' as part of the research excellence framework (REF). The aim of the study presented in this paper was to understand the role that educational technology…

This article provides an evaluative account of its authors' involvement in three major national improvement initiatives. Set in the context of three of the countries that make up the UK, these developments were focused in particular on the promotion of educational equity. Unusually, the analysis provided compares evidence collected from an insider…

In the context of ongoing debates around academic engagements with policymakers, this article discusses how academics can successfully engage with the often overlooked institution of Parliament. We argue that the UK Parliament is not a homogeneous organisation but has differing knowledge requirements for different parliamentary sites. While there…