Research (sometimes) matters

Research on children's early years tells us that people's life chances are heavily influenced by their experiences from a very early age (Schweinhart and Weikart, 1993; Ramey et al, 2000). Growing recognition of this has fed into important debates that range far beyond an academy of scholars to encompass a wide range of stakeholders, such as agencies, service providers and – perhaps most importantly of all – policy makers, including those at the UK Treasury. Changes in thinking off the back of these debates can be seen to have informed radical changes to the provision and financing of public services since the late 1990s, for example with the setting up and subsequent development of ‘Sure Start’ – a major UK government programme bringing together early education, child care, health care and family support (Eisenstadt, 2000). The activities and impacts of such initiatives have in turn been investigated and evaluated, with the findings from this newer research further feeding the debates, policy choices and practice arrangements (for example, NESS, 2005). Thus, research can sometimes clearly be seen to influence policy debates, the policy choices that flow from these, and the practical implementation of those choices. And policy and practice changes in turn can stimulate and shape the research that is planned, funded and executed in various settings (university, government, and public service arenas, including the third sector).

However, it is not always so. Researchers, as well as other stakeholders, often despair that clear findings are sometimes not heeded when decisions are made about the direction and delivery of public services. Indeed, policy and practice decisions sometimes seem to fly in the face of what is considered to be the best available evidence about ‘what works’ (Davies et al, 2000a). In health care, for example, researchers have long known that medical practice often lags behind summations of best evidence (Antman et al, 1992), that evidence is only rarely seen to support much of management decision making (Walshe and Rundall, 2001; Pfeffer and Sutton, 2006), and that structural reorganisations (such as hospital mergers) are pursued as solutions to organisation failings even though the evidence base is far from supportive (Fulop et al, 2002, 2005). In other areas too, policy and practice can sometimes be significantly out of step with robust research-based knowledge.