Chapter Four identified the principal models that we have for understanding the relationships between research and policy and research and practice. This chapter examines the different strategies that have been used to attempt to improve research use in relation to these different models. Research use improvement strategies are underpinned – explicitly or implicitly – by different frameworks for conceptualising both the nature of research use and the research use process. These different ways of thinking shape the kinds of research use initiatives that are put in place. In this chapter, we focus in particular on the putative mechanisms that seem to underpin different strategies for improving the use of research. Teasing out these mechanisms allows us to see both what is common across seemingly diverse strategies, as well as clarifying the wider theories that these mechanisms draw upon.

A wide range of initiatives exist, in the UK and beyond, that aim to improve policy and practice use of research (see, for example, Effective Health Care Bulletin, 1999; Hemsley-Brown and Sharp, 2003; Walter et al, 2004b). Many of these have been initiated in the context of the evidence-based policy and practice agenda outlined and discussed in Chapter One. This chapter explores some of the key strategies and activities that have been used to try to improve the use of research, and examines the evidence that exists about their effectiveness. Its main aim is to identify broad and cross-sector lessons from the health, education, criminal justice and social care fields about ‘what works’ to improve the use of research in policy and in practice. Inevitably, there will be far more research use initiatives on the ground than have been subject to formal evaluation. The first section of this chapter thus considers the diversity of research use strategies and activities by looking at the kinds of categorisations and taxonomies that have been developed to try to rationalise these.

Taxonomies of strategies to improve the use of research

An enormous variety of approaches have been taken to try to improve the use of research. Strategies vary according to the scale of the project, the nature of intended impact from research and their context for implementation, as well as the kinds of research evidence whose uptake is being promoted.