In Chapter Two we identified the many different ways in which the policy and practice communities can make use of research. This chapter begins to examine in more detail the processes through which research enters policy and practice, and the kinds of conditions and circumstances that seem to support the use of research. We begin by exploring the channels through which research may travel into the policy and practice arenas. Identifying these routes for research starts to highlight the sorts of processes through which research gets used, as well as the points at which the flow of research may be impeded or stimulated in its journey among researchers, policy makers and practitioners.

An extensive empirical literature exists on the kinds of factors that seem to shape the use of research, and on the barriers and enablers to the flow of research into policy and practice. This work provides our starting point for examining what we know about when and why research might get used. However, closer probing of this literature suggests that we know less about some barriers and enablers than others. The ways in which such factors may interact is also less clear. In concluding, we examine some of the implications of these issues for our understanding of the use of research, as well as more recent research findings that begin to address these questions.

The routes through which research enters policy and practice

Research can enter policy and practice through diverse channels and some understanding of these routes offers a first step to understanding the process of research use more generally. Identifying the routes through which policy makers and practitioners learn about research also offers some initial pointers about how to improve their access to and use of such research.

Surveys of policy makers and practitioners have asked them about the sources through which they obtain information about research, and these kinds of study dominate the empirical evidence we have about this issue. When asked, policy makers and practitioners describe a wide array of sources through which they access research-based information. Such access may be passive – where research findings land on a policy maker's or practitioner's desk – or much more active, when individuals seek out findings from research to help support their work.