Background: Academic researchers are occupying more varied roles as both knowledge producers and knowledge brokers in policymaking spaces beyond the national level. As the local arena presents different dimensions to the knowledge-policy-practice nexus, an assessment of the interaction of evidence and policy at this scale is warranted. Aims and…

Background: While the rhetoric of evidence-based policymaking and practice is pervasive and persuasive, the extent to which either have been achieved is contested. Both require effective approaches to research-based knowledge mobilisation, particularly at the local level where context specificities undermine generic 'what works' claims. There has…

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.…

Background: Research coproduction is advocated as an approach to produce more impactful evidence, by valuing a diversity of expertise and integrating knowledge users into research processes. Yet, extant literature finds that trying to bridge boundaries between different types of knowledge can also cause collaboration challenges and present…

Background: 'Embedded research' (co-locating researchers within non-academic organisations) is advocated as a way of developing more effective services through better creation and application of knowledge. Aims and objectives: The existing literature on embedded initiatives has largely been descriptive. There has been less in the way of analysis,…

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…

Background: Embedded research involves co-locating researchers within non-academic organisations to better link research and practice. Embedded research initiatives are often complex and emergent with a range of underlying intents, structures and processes. This can create tensions within initiatives and contributes to ongoing uncertainty about…

Background: Despite calls for greater use of research and an appetite to do so within adult social care, a gap persists between research and practice. Aims and objectives: To explore views of adult social care staff about research and its application to everyday practice. To understand how these might impact upon research use capacity-building…

Background: The academic impact agenda and evidence-informed policy movement have formed dynamic incentives for engagement between universities and local authorities. Yet, in the competitive higher education landscape, research-intensive universities frequently gravitate towards global rather than local impacts, while local government resources…

Background: A number of ways to conduct research are designed to maximise the likelihood that evidence from research is quickly transferred into practice. This includes action research and partnership research between researchers and policy makers. Such approaches focus research effort on questions of highest relevance to practice and policy so as…

This article provides an appraisal of collaborative conceptual modelling (CCM) as a tool for research translation. First developed by Newell and Proust (2012), CCM draws on the tools and frameworks of systems thinking as a way of addressing transdisciplinary problems. We applied CCM in two separate workshops - one discussing 'Digital Cities', and…

Background: Over the past decade, research-based and evidence-informed decision-making have played increasingly important roles in influencing educational policy and impacting practices in education. The dissemination, implementation and sustainability of research-to-practice are thus fruitful topics for discussion. Even though, as Oliver and…

There is a growing interest in collaborative approaches to research that actively engage both researchers and knowledge users in the creation of evidence. Collaborative research teams can produce relevant and timely knowledge for policy and practice, but must pay special attention to how they develop their partnerships in order to work together as…

Background: In the US, and conspicuously via social media, we are witnessing an acceleration of what we term historical knowledge mobilisation: increasingly and in various ways, evidence derived from academic historical research is being shared with broader publics. Moreover, evidence-based and false or misleading historical claims are being…

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…