Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of boxes, figures and tables
- Acknowledgements
- one Using evidence – introducing the issues
- two What does it mean to ‘use’ research evidence?
- three What shapes the use of research?
- four Descriptive models of the research impact process
- five Improving the use of research: what’s been tried and what might work?
- six What can we learn from the literature on learning, knowledge management and the diffusion of innovations?
- seven Improving research use in practice contexts
- eight Improving research use in policy contexts
- nine How can we assess research use and wider research impact?
- ten Drawing some conclusions on Using evidence
- References
- Index
nine - How can we assess research use and wider research impact?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 January 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of boxes, figures and tables
- Acknowledgements
- one Using evidence – introducing the issues
- two What does it mean to ‘use’ research evidence?
- three What shapes the use of research?
- four Descriptive models of the research impact process
- five Improving the use of research: what’s been tried and what might work?
- six What can we learn from the literature on learning, knowledge management and the diffusion of innovations?
- seven Improving research use in practice contexts
- eight Improving research use in policy contexts
- nine How can we assess research use and wider research impact?
- ten Drawing some conclusions on Using evidence
- References
- Index
Summary
Throughout this book we have been concerned to document the complexities of research use, and the diversity of ways in which such use has been conceptualised. Building on these understandings we have then sought to explain how research use might be improved or enhanced in a wide variety of public service settings. This chapter takes these debates further by asking – given all the complexity, diversity and messiness of research use – how can both research use processes and the resultant impacts be assessed? As we shall see, work fully assessing research impacts, in particular work that takes account of the kinds of complexity and unexpectedness of research use highlighted in earlier chapters, has, to date, been somewhat underdeveloped. Thus, the material presented in this chapter is necessarily a little tentative. Rather than being able to explore and summarise a mature field of evaluative studies, we instead draw attention to the concerns and difficulties inherent in this kind of work, and provide a series of reflective questions to aid the design of future work. In doing so we draw heavily on the complex and nuanced understandings of research use laid out in previous chapters.
This chapter, then, addresses a central question first raised (and then swiftly put to one side!) in Chapter One: does research use make a difference? As anyone working in the field of research use knows, a central irony is the only limited extent to which evidence advocates can themselves draw on a robust evidence base to support their convictions that greater evidence use will ultimately be beneficial to public services. Our conclusions in this chapter are that we are unlikely any time soon to see such comprehensive evidence neatly linking research, research use, and research impacts, and that we should instead be more modest in our expectations about what we can attain through studies that look for these. A key theme of this chapter, then, is how we might integrate more sophisticated understandings of research use into better studies of research impact.
We begin by exploring in a little more detail the drivers from various quarters for the production of evidence on research impacts or, as it is sometimes called, research payback.
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- Using EvidenceHow Research Can Inform Public Services, pp. 271 - 296Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2007
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