In this chapter we examine the different ways in which relationships between research and policy and research and practice have been conceptualised. Such models provide different frameworks for thinking about and understanding the research use process. As such, they capture some of the complexities that forms of research use take, which we discussed in Chapter Two; and they highlight some of the assumptions that underpin the different studies of the use of research encountered in Chapter Three. At the same time, these models also help us begin to think about the ways in which we might improve the use of research. Explicit theoretical development in the research use field has been relatively limited (for example, Wingens, 1990; Marteau et al, 2002), and to some extent this is reflected in the nature of the models we consider. Despite this, we can identify a range of conceptual frameworks for understanding the processes through which research enters the policy and practice arenas.

Models of the relationship between research and policy and between research and practice are considered separately in this discussion. Although the practice–policy divide may be viewed as a somewhat artificial distinction (see Chapter One), research use models in the literature are typically considered in terms of either policy or practice. They tend to focus on the relationship between research and macrolevel policy (typically at a national or federal level) or the relationship between research and front-line practice. Models of the process of research use specifically within meso-policy contexts, including organisational decision making, are less clear, and our own focus in this chapter reflects this. Some key contrasts between the policy and practice arenas also emerge when examining the role research may play within each, and these are elaborated in the concluding section to the chapter.

Despite the distinctions made between policy and practice in modelling research use, there have been very similar developments in terms of thinking and ideas around the use of research in both these fields. Broadly, early models tend to specify a relatively rational, linear and one-way relationship between research and policy/practice. These models have subsequently been critiqued and elaborated through a growing recognition of the complexity of research use, and the development of multidimensional models that attend in more depth to the diversity of factors influencing the use of research.