Back to Strengthening the Impact of Education Research

Key questions

The Strengthening the Impact of Education Research project explores the following questions:

• What factors – institutions, structures, resources, characteristics, processes and strategies – facilitate or hinder the impact and systematic use of education research in policy and practice?
• How can we assess and safeguard the quality of education research?
• How can we effectively engage actors in a coordinated production and use of education research?

Approach and outputs

 

Research and Analyses

Policy survey 

The project conducted a policy survey focused on mapping the strategies applied by countries and systems across the OECD to strengthen the use of education research in policy and practice. The survey explores the following themes:

• Actors, mechanisms and relationships that facilitate research use in policy making and practice,
• Good practices and challenges in terms of mindset and culture of research use, resources, skills and capacity as well as learning opportunities
• Aspects of research production: accessibility, relevance, involvement of different actors, incentives and funding.

Overall, 37 systems representing 29 countries have responded to the survey, reflecting education ministries’ perspectives on research production and use. See the main findings in the ‘’Who Cares about Using Education Research in Policy and Practice?’’ report.

 

Intermediaries’ survey

In 2023 the project will conduct a survey that will focus on knowledge intermediaries’ role in the evidence system. While in many education systems, we have witnessed an increase in the quantity of actors and initiatives focused on facilitating the use of research evidence, the understanding of actors working between research production and use remains limited. The survey will analyse these actors’ characteristics and the impact of their work by drawing on the conceptual work presented in a working paper on knowledge mobilisation.

 

Practices from different countries and sectors

The project is collecting and analysing promising practices that have been used in different countries and different sectors (e.g. health) to strengthen the production and use of research in policy and practice. 

 

Applied work with countries and experts

The project is actively building partnerships with key players in the field of research mobilisation, including academics and experts, “what works” centres and other organisations such as foundations, networks and partnerships to share knowledge and achieve common objectives and research goals.

Engagement with countries and key actors is supported by a series of events, such as webinars and expert meetings, as well as other communication platforms. 

Countries are invited to:

• Propose themes of interest and country-specific cases to share
• Engage as critical friends in the design of research and analysis carried out in the project
• Provide names of relevant institutes and experts for our databases
• Host learning seminars
• Propose and support in-depth case studies.