Abstract
This article sets out a framework for analysing research–policy partnerships for societal change in international development settings. It defines types of change associated with engaging research evidence with policy and practice and draws on existing literature to explore how partnerships between researchers, intermediaries, and evidence users may be better understood. The proposed framework sets out three interconnected qualities of effective partnerships: (1) bounded mutuality, (2) sustained interactivity, and (3) policy adaptability. We apply this framework to the articles included in this IDS Bulletin describing ESRC-DFID-funded research projects in a variety of international development scenarios.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Number of pages | 1 |
| Journal | IDS Bulletin |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 10 Jun 2019 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 30 Jun 2019 |
Funding
The Impact Initiative has aimed to increase the uptake and impact of research from two major research programmes jointly funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Department for International Development (DFID): the Joint Fund for Poverty Alleviation Research and the Raising Learning Outcomes in Education Systems Research Programme. The starting point is that the ESRC-DFID strategic partnership is funding good-quality, policy-relevant research for which identifying ‘pathways to impact’ is integral.3 The Initiative developed a wheel of impact derived from the definitions of research impact adopted by the ESRC: capacity building, conceptual, and instrumental impacts. From the outset, the Impact Initiative’s strategy added to this ‘networks and connectivity’, as another anticipated outcome of the programme (Figure 1). This framework recognises the different modes of research impact as interrelated.
Keywords
- Evidence-informed policy
- Impact
- International development
- Policy engagement
- Research partnership
- Research uptake
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Geography, Planning and Development
- Development