Discusses strategies to improve policy makers' utilization of research based on the "two-communities" theory that social scientists and policy makers live in two different worlds. Notes that for high level decision making, collaboration must involve more general problems and a decision to use either data-based or nonresearch knowledge for solving…

A preliminary review of findings and implications of social science research utilization among government officials is provided. The data come from face-to-face interviews of 204 persons at the upper levels of decision making in the executive branch of the federal government. Section one presents descriptive data on the diversity of the…