Evidence Check, a programme managed by the Sax Institute in Sydney, Australia, assists Australian policy makers to commission quality reviews of research to inform health policy decision making. The programme involves an iterative knowledge brokering process to formulate and refine the scope of and questions for the review. The knowledge brokering…

"Impact" is a notion that is not very well understood in research. Within Australian higher education, it has been bandied about within such frameworks as the "Research Quality Framework" ("RQF") and Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA). Vocational education and training (VET) research is not immune from these…

Current economic conditions and the increasing competition for government funding are leading to an increased focus on the impact of research. Measuring the impact of research is difficult because not all impacts are direct and some can be negative or result from the identification of problems that require a non-research response. The time between…

In February 2009, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) commissioned RAND Europe to review approaches to evaluating the impact of research as part of their wider work programme to develop new arrangements for the assessment and funding of research--referred to as the Research Excellence Framework (REF). The objectives were 1) to…

Background: Disability research data often exist in the form of individual records located within discrete registers that may extend across sensitive political boundaries. Method: This paper discusses the opportunities and challenges associated with using linked health and administrative data for disability research, with examples from research…

This interim report analyzes the dissemination and impact of "SET: Research Information for Teachers," a package of articles presenting educational research findings in a journalistic style for distribution to Australian and New Zealand schools and teachers. The report consists of four sections. The first section reviews recent…

Reported in this document are proceedings of a forum on the relationships between the child and the family. Held March 1981 in Melbourne, Australia, the forum was jointly sponsored by the Institute of Family Studies and the Victorian Child Development and Family Services Council (CDFSC). Specifically, the purpose of the forum was to enable…

Australia's new national vocational education and training (VET) research and evaluation (R&E) strategy is underpinned by the goal of improving the VET systems and must accommodate the needs of all the different stakeholders in the VET sector. It focuses on research applied in nature, consolidating and advancing knowledge, and on evaluation…

Significant developments have occurred in the field of professional development (PD) in Australia's vocational education and training (VET) sector in the past 10 years. During the early 1990s, work-based learning (WBL) became the preferred model for PD in the VET sector. Research sponsored by the National Staff Development Committee of the…