Evidencebased policy research

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Evidence-based policy research
Tom Schuller CERI/OECD

• Committee for Educational Sciences
• Swedish Research Council, 10 October 2007

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Directorate For Financial Fiscal and Enterprise
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Trade and Agriculture Directorate
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Directorate for Education
COUNCIL
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Centre for Educational Research and
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Governance Directorate
COMMITTEES
Statistics Directorate
Directorate for Science Technology and Industry
Environment Directorate
Development Co-operation Directorate
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Education andTraining PolicyDivision
Indicators andAnalysisDivision
DirectorateforEducation
IMHE/PEB
Centre forEducational Research andInnovation
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Evidence-related international policy research
types

• Statistical rankings/tables
• Surveys
• Benchmarking
• Analysing trends
• Identifying innovations/ good practice
• Evaluating policy impact
• Issues - description or explanation?
• - function and usage?

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Difference between trust in official statistics
and trust in national governments
BE Belgium BG Bulgaria CZ - Czech Republic
DK Denmark DE Germany EE Estonia EL
Greece ES - Spain FR France IE Ireland
IT Italy CY - Cyprus LT Lithuania LV
Latvia LU Luxembourg HU Hungary MT
Malta NL - The Netherlands AT Austria PL
Poland PT Portugal RO Romania SI
Slovenia SK Slovakia FI Finland SE
Sweden UK - The United Kingdom HR Croatia TR
Turkey.
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Trust in official statistics
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Drivers

• Education as key factor in innovation/growth
  contested contribution of education research
• Accountability pressures but to whom?
• Quality and effectiveness appropriate measures
• Public access to information, and
  (dis)satisfaction levels

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CERI Educational RD reviews

• General conclusions
• Low levels of investment
• Low capacity
• Weak research/policy/practice links
• Recommendations
• Balancing the research portfolio
• Accumulation building a knowledge base
• Dissemination
• Capacity-building

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Section 3.2 HRSTThe share of researchers in
TEIs has fallen in many countriesHigher
education researchers as of national total
OECD Thematic Review of Tertiary Education 4th
Workshop of Participating Countries, Paris, 27-28
September 2007
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Knowledge user-producer networks

• Policy-makers Researchers
• Practitioners
• School boards/ Media Head teachers
• parents

Questions What are the strengths/weaknesses of
each of these links? How best to encourage
stronger cooperation?
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Methodologies and capacities

• Methodological debate
• Scientific ideal(s) vs. best available
• Warfare, mutual invisibility or complementarity
• Capacity building
• deepening vs. broadening
• producers and consumers

Questions What forms of capacity are most in
need of strengthening? How and by whom should
this be done?
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Can we agree?

• there is no single best method for or type of
  evidence-based policy research the key is for
  the research and policy communities
• to deploy appropriate combinations of approaches
  and methodologies which match the characteristics
  of the policy issue under consideration, and
• to have the capacity to select, implement and
  evaluate these combinations.
• Militantly wishy-washy?

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An outline of the full cycle of education
research
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Developing expertise in experimental design if
death is not the answer.

• Lessons from the historical legitimation of
  medical research? All healthy?
• Ranking is gold standard a helpful term?
• Sequence are RCTs the final step?

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Brokerage agencies

• Issues/functions
• Dissemination publications, internet,
  presentations
• Promoting interactivity
• Legitimating rigour/quality
• Developing cooperation/trust

Questions Rationales what are the different
functions and of brokerage agencies? Effectiveness
what are their achievements to date?
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Future challenges

• Defining an evaluation culture
• Selecting key capacities
• Building social capital into research strategies
• Complementarity/accumulation promoting mixed
  methods to strengthen the knowledge base

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Evidence In Education Linking Research and
Policy

• The Evidence Agenda
• Secretariat paper
• What counts and what should count as evidence
• Tom Cook and Stephen Gorard
• Mediating the Research/Policy Interface the role
  of brokerage agencies
• - What Works Clearinghouse (US), Bob Boruch and
  Rebecca Herman
• - EPPI Centre (UK), David Gough
• - Iterative Best Evidence Synthesis Programme
  (NZ), A. Alton-Lee
• - Canadian Council on Learning (CAN), Charles
  Ungerleider
• - Denmarks Knowledge Clearinghouse (DEN), René
  Bugge Bertramsen
• - Knowledge Chamber (Netherlands), Hans Stegeman
  and Rien Rouw
• - Social Care Institute of Excellence (UK), Bill
  Kilgallon
• EbPR in practice examples from the field
• - Satya Brink (CAN)
• - Hannele Niemi (FIN)
• - Andrew Pollard (UK)
• - David Hogan (Singapore)
• Politicians perspectives

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Thank you

• Tom.Schuller_at_oecd.org

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