Introduction

This chapter discusses the extent to which universities and research centresare providers of policy analysis to the public sector in Spain andidentifies their activities in this domain. To obtain a detailed perspectiveof how they serve as a source of capacity for public policy analysis acrossthe country – advising and supporting the public sector and thepoliticians who lead them – we examine their activities towards thisend from different perspectives. First, we examine the extent to whichpolicy analysis and policy advice are components of knowledge transfer bySpanish universities which support the public sector in a similar way as thetransfer of knowledge to industry and entrepreneurship (Berbegal-Mirabent etal, 2013). Second, we identify which type of research activities andacademic structures are more common in the different academic fields relatedto policy analysis, and which policy areas are more frequently scrutinised.We also identify the growing specialisation among policy analysts andexperts in academia and the different roles of university personal in policyanalysis. Finally, this chapter considers the nature of university–public-sector interactions in Spain and more specifically the collaborationbetween policy-makers and the academics who act as policy analysts.

Among the models that characterise the relation between applied research andpolicy analysis identified by Trow (1984), three models can be highlighted:the percolation model, which considers that researchinspires policy indirectly because outputs contribute to enlightening thepolicy understanding of actors who are involved in policy-making and shapetheir views regarding different alternatives. The second model, called thepolitical demand model, expects the direct or indirectcommissioning of research by policy-makers to eventually justify theirdecisions or just to reinforce some arguments in a particular policy area. Athird one, the collaborative model, can also be definedbased on a different logic of collaboration between academics andpolicy-makers. This model describes the collaboration between scientists andthe administrative structures in the public sector, and how scientists actas network brokers continuously connecting academics and bureaucrats insearch of policy evidence and policy analysis (for example, Doubleday andWilsdon, 2013, or Lambright and Zinke, 1989).