ABSTRACT
This chapter describes evidence shapes policy, policy shapes evidence, co-production and autonomous spheres. It aims to relate them to real-life examples of Higher Education policymaking in the United Kingdoms, ranging from traditionally wonky policy areas like the Research Excellence Framework and the removal of student number caps to more topical questions of free speech on campus and the outsized clout of the alumni of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge in politics and policymaking. One of the most significant critiques of the “evidence shapes policy” approach is that it ignores the ways in which policy, politics, and power shape evidence. Under the “two communities” theory, researchers and policymakers “live in separate worlds”: the researcher’s world is all “pure” science and the pursuit of the truth; the policymaker’s world is “action-oriented” and concerned with finding solutions to the most immediate problems.
