In Ireland as elsewhere, the value of putting evidence and scientific advice at the centre of public policy-making, has rarely been more evident. The prominence of the science-policy interface has renewed interest in the prospects for evidence based policy (EBP) in education. Notwithstanding the political rhetoric around EBP in education, little…

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) is the European Commission's in-house science and knowledge service, employing a substantial staff of scientists devoted to conducting research to provide independent scientific advice for EU policy. Focussed on various research areas aligned with EU priorities, the JRC excels in delivering scientific evidence for…

Background: Understanding how policymakers define research and differentiate it from other sources of data is critical for scientists to improve how they conduct and communicate research to policy audiences. Yet, few studies have explicitly asked policymakers -- particularly state legislators in the USA -- how they define research evidence.…

Although there is increased need for closing the gap between educational research and policy to better enable effective practice, addressing the problem remains a challenge. A review of current literature reveals a lack of systematic guidelines which clarify how collaboration between researchers and policy-makers can actually be achieved.…

The scientific endeavour involves not only those working in research performing organisations--but also those in science funding, policy making, and think tank organisations, among others. The workforce in all these entities is composed of researchers, policy decision makers, managers, administrators, technicians, and other supporting staff.…

Background: Many different concepts have been invoked in the literature to describe coordination between scientific and policy practices. However, a framework to understand different types of this boundary management is lacking, which allows 'linear' models and 'gap' metaphors to persist. Objectives: To operationalise the multidimensional…

Purpose: Globalization, and more specifically international organizations, has had a major effect upon national education systems worldwide. Understandably, the academic literature covering this phenomenon has expanded at a prolific rate. This study contributes to this body of knowledge by examining how the international organizations affect…

Although interest in ESE policy studies is on the rise, we argue there is a gap in scholarship about the nature and extent of interactions between policymakers and researchers in the ESE field. This paper addresses this gap by discussing one example of such interaction -- an ongoing research-practice partnership (RPP) between the New York City…

Background: Despite the known need for empirical research-to-policy studies, little is known about the factors and conditions needed to support meaningful evidence use or how to intervene to promote quality evidence use. Aims and objectives: To study research-policy processes empirically and descriptively, we conducted an ethnography that focused…

The rise in the use of scientific evidence as a basis for educational policymaking has been a noticeable feature globally. In this study, we describe and discuss how educational research is used to make policy and governing evidence-based. To illustrate this, we use the Swedish Schools Inspectorate (SSI) as a case and focus on two of the processes…

(International) research collaboration (IRC) is considered one of the most important aspects of academic careers and, although it is often linked to co-authorship, investigations of academic perceptions and practices are rare. Reflections on factors affecting IRC, as well as effective technology for use in IRC are also now particularly vital, due…

The need for better linkages between evidence and policymaking has been well established in the literature, with a heightened focus on the relationship between researchers, research utilisation and policy development. However, fostering such linkages using a policy network approach has seldom been discussed. This article revisits a key framework…

Aim: Policymaking decisions are often uninformed by research and research is rarely influenced by policymakers. To bridge this 'know-do' gap, a boundary-spanning knowledge mobilisation (KM) team was created by embedding researchers-in-residence and local policymakers into each other's organisations. Through increasing the two-way flow of knowledge…

This paper presents results from a survey of Romanian education researchers on their experience of research uptake and transfer to policy makers and practitioners. A range of variables are analysed in order to understand the factors they perceived to influence the use of educational research. The researchers' context was analysed, including…

Calls to improve relationships between research and practice abound, among them efforts to help researchers to work in partnership with and communicate more effectively with policy and practice audiences, informing those that govern and design educational policies and those charged with implementation in schools and classrooms, respectively. These…