ABSTRACT
The afterword first pays homage to several champions who have advanced the cause of evidence-based policymaking, including the William T. Grant Foundation along with key foundation officers such as Vice President Vivian Tseng, President Adam Gamoran, past president Robert Granger, and Senior Program Officer Kim Dumont. Many individual researchers and scientists have taken up the challenge of evidence-based policy with the full realization that science is not the total answer. Yet science could play a more substantive role by nudging policymaking beyond the paralysis and gridlock that seize up our political institutions. The authors end by turning from analysis to laying out an action agenda for the future within four global themes: 1. make research utilization a priority theoretical and empirical interest within the academy (see Chapters 5, 7, 8, and 9); 2. change the academic cultural milieu to nurture a new kind of policy-sensitive research and researcher (see Chapter 12); 3. take steps to change the policy cultural milieu to better engage policymakers with research and researchers (see Chapters 3, 9, and 10); and 4. explore more deeply the cultures of the research and policy communities that could serve to transform the intersection of researchers and policymakers on a more systemic level (see Chapters 5, 6, and 7).
