Who Really Cares about Using Education Research in Policy and Practice?

Executive Summary

The OECD Strengthening the Impact of Education Research project uncovered a rich landscape of actors and mechanisms striving to reinforce the quality, production and use of education research in OECD countries. Yet, it also revealed important barriers to the use of research in policy and practice, as well as a lack of systems approaches to increasing research engagement.

This second report of the project explores how a culture of research engagement can be created and nurtured. It brings together leading experts who provide insights into cutting-edge research in the field and international experience gathered from both education policy and practice. In addition, the report provides further analyses of data collected from over 30 systems through an OECD policy survey. The analysis explores what a culture of research engagement might look like in different systems, organisations and contexts. One of the ambitions of this report is to bring to life the concept of a “systems approach” by providing insights into what this might entail. As a result, this report reflects on how organisational and systemic capacity for a quality use of research in policy making and practice can be systematically built. It features concrete examples of deep forms of research engagement and systems thinking, presenting case studies, analyses, tools and processes.

Many systems are still missing a shared understanding of what constitutes thoughtful engagement with research, and the basic conditions to enable it

A culture of research engagement is founded on a shared and deep understanding of what research evidence and “thoughtful engagement” with it mean. Data suggest that most systems are still missing this shared understanding. Genuine motivation, a willingness to challenge one’s views, curiosity and trust are key ingredients of thoughtful engagement with research. To nurture these, systems need to allocate time and stable funding for research generation, knowledge mobilisation and engagement. These resources can be used to create stable relationships and quality interactions between actors that promote thoughtful engagement with research.

Novel approaches and well co-ordinated policy mechanisms can help build a robust knowledge base

There is no thoughtful engagement with research without appropriate research in the first place. Well‑designed policy mechanisms to co-ordinate the production of education research can help address gaps in research and issues around accessibility and relevance. Mechanisms that support systematic evidence synthesis are still insufficient in education despite wide recognition of the importance of synthesis in reinforcing research engagement. Novel research approaches that promote collaboration, such as stakeholder involvement in research generation, show promising results in increasing research engagement.

System-level co-ordination of research generation is fundamental to building a robust knowledge base and increasing engagement with it. This can include systematically identifying research needs and gaps and establishing a strategy for education research that incorporates both production and use. However, it is often less clear how well these mechanisms work. Furthermore, their effectiveness lies not only in their quality but also in their complementarity and alignment with systemic factors, such as incentives and the policy environment.

Professional learning should be better supported to ensure all actors have the right knowledge and skills for research engagement

Professional learning should be both a norm and a deliberate strategy in organisations and systems that aspire to develop a strong research engagement culture. Yet, practitioners’ and policy makers’ research‑engagement skills are not yet widespread, and they lack appropriate learning opportunities. On the positive side, a variety of tools and approaches have been developed to promote such learning. There are tools to build policy makers’ and practitioners’ research-related skills for research; and tools to improve organisational and system-level capacity for greater research engagement. In many cases, there is a strong degree of innovation in their design. This report showcases competence frameworks, models of research use and knowledge mobilisation, and learning conversations and collective evidence appraisal by stakeholders, among other tools and approaches. Overall, the analysis highlights the need to better leverage existing tools.

Structures and processes that support research engagement should be tested more widely

An increasing number of structures and processes are designed to bridge the gaps between research, policy and practice communities. Examples featured in this report, such as schemes that promote greater proximity between research and policy communities, policy action research and arts-based approaches, show emerging evidence on creating structured and quality interactions among actors, driving their professional development and supporting research generation, mobilisation and engagement in organisations and systems. Adapting and testing these structures and processes across country contexts and sectors could help build knowledge on their impact and effectiveness, including the conditions for their transferability.

Coherent leadership is needed to drive research engagement towards systematic and system-wide improvement

Leadership is key in role modelling behaviours and creating the necessary conditions and incentives for research engagement. This includes establishing a culture of trust and continuous learning in which individuals and teams feel they can share challenges and experiment with new methods. Good leadership within organisations ensures that research and innovation are tightly connected and work towards systematic improvement.

A system-level understanding of the respective roles and impact of the various structures, processes and approaches, and how they connect and complement each other, is still largely lacking in many systems. This understanding is necessary to map missing links in the research ecosystem and identify co-ordination strategies that can create coherence and support knowledge mobilisation and research engagement across the whole system. Coherent leadership across the whole system can ensure there is a shared understanding and vision of research engagement and its role in improving education policy and practice. Coherence needs strong connections between different levels of leadership: schools, local, regional and national. System leaders must actively work to address perverse incentives and other systemic factors that are detrimental to building a strong culture of research engagement.