Deliberation, Dialogue and Debate: Why Researchers need to Engage with Others to Address Complex Issues

Abstract

As societies have become more differentiated, policy issues are increasingly being analysed using concepts and ideas from the complexity sciences. Policy change involving diverse stakeholders interacting with one another in ways that are shaped by power and politics are increasingly characterised by contestation and unpredictability. Stakeholders other than researchers are collecting information and producing their own knowledge to add new perspectives to those of, and contest the power given to, researchers and their advice. Against this backdrop, I argue that traditional approaches to communicating research to policymakers are inadequate. Researchers now share the field of knowledge production and communication with many others, and where appropriate, those who view their role in relation to policy, should be prepared to engage with stakeholders affected by policy issues and expose their findings to human interaction, review and scrutiny by others.

The Impact of Research on Development Policy and Practice: This Much We Know

“…They should consider how best to accommodate impact within internal structures, job descriptions, annual appraisal and promotional criteria and pay awards and professional development opportunities. Other commentators have called on research institutions to provide researchers with the right incentives to engage effectively with users of research (Datta 2012), and a shift in incentive struc-tures is called for that reward actual impact rather than only "high-impact" journals to ensure science is shared with those who need it. Incentives for researchers to produce outputs that reach a broader swath of society are so low that if engaged in at all, this occurs as an afterthought once results are published (Shanley and López 2009).…”

“…O'Neill (2005) suggests direct engagement by researchers with the policy community as one of three essential elements of policy influence for development research, saying that the research community must become participants in democratic governance, active at every level. Likewise, Hovland (2003) points towards platforms of broad engagement from which to communicate, such as a public campaign, for research to be more likely to be heard, a suggestion echoed by Datta (2012), who argues that public engagement processes that draw on a range of methods and approaches to elicit a diversity of views are likely to work better. A report by the DFID project on research to action regards engagement as individuals moving from simply accessing or consuming the content and services offered by an online platform to becoming more involved in the platform, recommending or promoting it and actively co-creating the content.…”

“…Despite these assertions, Datta (2012) notes that not all researchers see policy engagement as part of their role, suggesting that engagement processes may be more suited to those who see themselves as issue advocates who aim to influence policy in a particular direction and honest brokers who clarify and potentially expand the policy options available to decision-makers. Moreover, despite the new expectations that urge engagement in knowledge transfer, many researchers still accord it a low priority (Jacobson et al 2004).…”

Gender, Sexuality and Development: Revisiting and Reflecting

“…The 'politicising of knowledge' in terms of co-construction and promotion of hidden voices has been an important progressive step in development communications (Datta 2012). BRIDGE has advanced this not only in their sharing of knowledge from around the world via Siyanda and their shared development of the Cutting Edge Programme, but also through their multilingual work.…”

Research on the Impact of the Information Society in the Global South: An Introduction to SIRCA

“…This review of the impact of research on development policy and practice reports that information society impact research in the Global South has almost exclusively focused on the impact of ICTs without taking into account the socio-economic impact of research itself. Harris proposes that in order to reduce the disparity between research and practice, researchers ought to interact with stakeholders at varying levels to ensure that the research addresses real-world problems with the goal of producing tangible outputs, an argument echoed by others (Datta 2012). Datta (2012) disaggregates some of RAPID's elements, finding that traditional approaches to communicating research to policymakers are inadequate.…”