This article explores the use of research and expertise within a selection of government agencies at state and federal levels in Australia. A recent survey of public officials provides new data on the reported use of evidence and expertise sourced from within the public service and from external sources. The survey instrument targeted the policy, program and evaluation staff in human service agencies and central policy coordination agencies. The survey findings provide new information on public servants' policy skills and organisational context, their attitudes to non-government sources of expert evidence and knowledge, and their perceptions of the relevance of academic social research. Data are reported on the relative importance assigned by public officials in state and federal agencies to various sources of expert information. Factors that hinder and facilitate the uptake of external research by policyrelated officials are canvassed, with special attention to organisational cultures and practices. Some similarities and differences between types of agencies are noted, especially those between state-level and federal agencies. The broader political context of policy work is also highlighted.

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While academics can do more to communicate the key messages of their research, the organisational cultures and information infrastructure of policy-related work units also play a large part in influencing the extent of research uptake in government agencies. Data from a large Australian survey (N 2084) of policy-related officials in government agencies is examined to provide insights into how certain preferences, constraints and organisational factors influence the ways in which policy personnel seek out and use academic social research.

This paper reports results from a survey of academic social scientists in Australian universities on their research engagement experience with industry and government partners and end-users of research. The results highlight that while academics report a range of benefits arising from research collaborations, there are also significant impediments to research translation and uptake, including organisational processes within universities. Using the scale of research utilisation, we examine research transfer and uptake and explore a range of variables to understand factors influencing the use of academic social science research by policy makers and practitioners.

This article reports results from a survey of academic social scientists in Australian universities on reported levels of research utilisation by non-academic users. Using the scale of research utilisation we examine levels of research impact and explore a range of variables to understand factors influencing the use of academic social science research by policy-makers and practitioners.The results indicate that research uptake is enhanced through mechanisms that improve research transfer and the intensity of interactions between academic researchers and users. Our findings provide insights into how the impact of social science research can be improved and draws attention to factors that need to be considered in efforts to evaluate and enhance the impact of academic social research.