ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies four types of research relationship with planning practice, and then presents the form of personal biography. It discusses some example of research on the implementation of development plans undertaken for the Department of the Environment (DoE). Evaluation research arises when planners and their clients want to know if plans, policies and actions would work or have worked. In Britain, the institutional context of planning has changed quite dramatically since the early 1980s when we conducted our work. Certain people, such as Peter Hall, play a key role in identifying significant social science research findings and communicating these to policy and planning communities. The work of Forester, Hock and others in the US-based 'Planning Practice Research Network' is of this nature, linked to the ideal of developing more progressive and democratic forms of planning practice.
