ABSTRACT
Building institutions to improve evidence use Chapter 2 laid out a number of limitations with many current efforts to promote evidence use in policymaking. These served as springboards for subsequent chapter discussions, including the need to address the political sources of evidentiary bias, the need to consider good evidence from a policy perspective and the need to consider political legitimacy in the process of evidence utilisation. A final challenge identified in that chapter was captured in the recognition that the vast majority of work discussing how to improve evidence focuses on individuals – exploring strategies such as linking researchers and policymakers, bringing evidence to decision makers or training individuals to broker knowledge. It was noted that such efforts place undue expectations on researchers, who may not see it as their role or skill set to transfer knowledge. Furthermore, a focus on individuals also risks having limited potential to engender long-term or systemwide change, as individuals naturally leave their positions or change roles over time. This individualistic focus has led Nutley, Walter and Bland to argue that insufficient attention has been paid to the institutional arrangements that connect evidence to policy, defining institutions as ‘the formal organisations established to connect evidence and policy, particularly focusing on their roles, structures, and modes of operation’ (2002, p. 78). The authors further argue that this lack of attention to institutions serves as one of the main explanations for the lack of utilisation of social research in policymaking.
