Strategies for Facilitating Knowledge Adoption: How Researchers can Better Influence Education Policy

Abstract

This paper examines how researchers can improve their chances of influencing education policy. It presents the findings of a
literature review and interviews with educational researchers and policy-makers in England and Wales. The projects’ aims were: i) to
understand the actions researchers should undertake in order to successfully influence policy; ii) to augment existing work by developing
a suite of empirically inspired knowledge adoption strategies specifically for researchers. The paper concludes by presenting four
strategy types that will aid researchers to influence policy debates: i) research outputs which meet policy-makers’ specific requirements
from research (‘policy ready’ strategies); ii) the effective communication of research (‘promotional’ strategies); iii) ‘traditional’ academic
behaviour (‘traditional’ strategies); iv) academics shifting their relative position with regards to the how ‘privilege