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. Therefore, this study aims to articulate a framework which satisfies these needs. We used Lasswell's stages heuristic model, integrated with perspectives from Kingdon's model, as a basis for building this framework, and conducted semi-structured interviews with nine experts in educational research and policy-making to gain understanding for how to effectuate their collaboration. The study identified six main stages for achieving effective collaboration, and the resulting framework could prove useful to future applications.