Introduction

National governments around the world are concerned about the effectiveness and efficiency of their education systems and this inevitably leads them to question how they can improve or at least maintain their comparative performance, particularly as measured by international studies of student performance such as PIRLS, TIMSS and PISA. Delivering high-quality education requires knowledge about the scale, source and structuring of educational problems and what might work in addressing these. Education research can provide some of the knowledge needed to tackle these issues, so it is not surprising that there is a growing demand for education research that is useful and for efforts to ensure that this research is used in developing education policies and practices.

However, as is well illustrated by earlier chapters in this book, the promise of research-informed policy and practice is often not matched by the reality. The reasons for this are rooted in the multiple influences that shape whether and how research gets used. These include: the nature of the research itself – particularly the extent to which it is relevant, credible and meets users’ needs; the characteristics of those actually using the research – particularly their willingness and ability to use research; and the degree of linkage between researchers and relevant policy and practice communities. In addition, the context for research use is key to understanding when research knowledge is likely to be used, and in what ways (Nutley et al, 2007).

Chapters One and Two introduced knowledge mobilisation (KM) as the broad term used in this book to refer to the dynamic relationship between all these factors because it is ‘essentially about building stronger connections between research, policy and practice’ (see Qi and Levin, this volume). Those chapters also emphasised that the purpose of this book is to capture similarities and differences in the way in which education research is organised and shared around the world, with particular emphasis on the role played by universities in mobilising research knowledge.

This final chapter reflects on the key issues to emerge from earlier chapters.