Social development as knowledge building: research as a sphere of policy influence

Abstract

The value of using social development knowledge as a tool for building development policy was promoted by the British bilateral donor in the late 1990s. This article takes the case of a capacity building initiative that sought to build social development knowledge as a resource for policy formulation in 'southern' countries. Situating knowledge as a development resource presents difficulties for intervention processes that have historically developed to provide access to economic and social assets. This article highlights some of the problems involved in trying to build social development capacity and questions the suitability of this style of intervention. Inappropriate and short-term support for knowledge capacity building carries the danger that the traditional separation between the academic and practice spheres will be reinforced, making the process of democratising social knowledge more difficult. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Assessing the impact of research on policy: a literature review

“…A number of project management tools do include evaluation as a critical stage in the life cycle of a project. These include log frames (Fisher and Holland, 2003;Pielke, 1995), ROAMEF (rationale, objectives, appraisal in detail, monitoring, evaluation and feedback) (Cunningham et al, 2001;Georghiou and Davis, 1988) and outcome mapping (Garfinkel et al, 2006;Leksmono et al, 2006). The key strength of these approaches is that evaluation is embedded within the project management process, thus ensuring that it is not seen as a separate, stand-alone activity, and is considered right from the start of project planning.…”

Technical assistance for health in non‐conflict fragile states: challenges and opportunities

“…The very term TA, and its use in development, have been and remain frequently contentious, viewed variously as a tool of neo-colonialism, as top-down, insensitive to local realities, gender-blind, all too driven by donors' economic and security agendas, tied into unjust conditionalities, and inherently unsupportive of genuinely sustainable development (for discussion from a number of viewpoints, see e.g. Hobart, 1993;Gardner and Lewis, 1996;Chambers, 1997;Sen, 1999;Fukuda-Parr et al, 2002;Fischer, 2003;Fisher and Holland, 2003;Briggs, 2005;ActionAid International, 2006). Recent consideration of how best to deliver sustainable development assistance, and who should be involved in TA, has resulted in the use of alternative definitions such as technical co-operation, capacity building and knowledge management, often in an attempt to base such support on a more equitable relationship of both delivering and receiving knowledge.…”

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

“…Yet the former trickle down and transfer paradigms continue to guide and dominate the behaviours of academics (Shanley and López 2009). However, the use of social knowledge as a resource for policymaking has become a means to mobilise researchers and policymakers in new political alliances, over and above old ideological and partisan differences that have separated academia from engagement with practice (Fisher and Holland 2003). Nevertheless, within both worlds of academia and policy, there is still lack of clarity or consensus on the meanings of research impact or influence, and researchers have very different ideas about who they are trying to influence, to what end and using which methods (Harvey et al 2012).…”