La Brooy Camille, Kelaher Margaret
The University of Melbourne, Level 4, 207 Bouverie Street, Carlton, VIC, 3053, Australia.
Health Res Policy Syst. 2017 Sep 2;15(1):75. doi: 10.1186/s12961-017-0239-z.
Decision-makers tend to make connections with researchers far too late in the game of public policy, expecting to find a retail store in which researchers are busy filling shop-front shelves with a comprehensive set of all possible relevant studies that a decision-maker might some day drop by to purchase. This linear type of relation between research and policy needs to be replaced by a more interactive model that facilitates both researchers obtaining a better understanding of policy processes and policymakers being more aware and involved in the conceptualisation and conduct of research. This paper explores the role of governance in facilitating the research-policy nexus, testing a typology of research utilisation based on Murray's (Soc Policy Society 10(4):459-70, 2011) analysis that considers various degrees of researcher-policymaker deliberation in decision-making processes. The projects were all part of various evaluation efforts carried out by the researchers to explore the use of governance in health promotion activities.
Three case studies were chosen to provide some specific examples that illustrate each level of Murray's typology. The examples involve intersectoral health promotion collaborations that combine evidence-based research in health policy initiatives with various levels of researcher involvement. For all three projects, interview data was collated in the same way, coded thematically and analysed to consider the relationship between researchers and policymakers.
Comparing the three models and their applicability to health promotion interventions, it could be observed that all programmes demonstrated successful examples of research translation. Strong governance imperatives structuring relationships led to more successful outcomes, whereby research was successfully translated into a public policy initiative that also led to improved health outcomes. The key idea across all of these models was that strong governance arrangements mitigated some of the barriers evidenced by the varying degrees of deliberation and researcher involvement in processes.
The paper demonstrates that successful research utilisation is related to strong governance agendas and that early and ongoing involvement of relevant decision-makers and researchers in the governance processes, that is both the conceptualisation and conduct of a study, tend to be the best predictors of success.
在公共政策博弈中，决策者与研究人员建立联系的时机往往过晚，他们期望找到这样一家零售店：研究人员正忙着往店面货架上摆满决策者某天可能会来购买的所有可能相关的综合研究成果。研究与政策之间这种线性关系需要被一种更具互动性的模式所取代，这种模式既能让研究人员更好地理解政策制定过程，又能让政策制定者更多地了解并参与到研究的概念化和实施过程中。本文探讨治理在促进研究与政策联系方面的作用，基于默里（《社会政策协会》10(4):459 - 70, 2011）的分析对研究利用类型进行检验，该分析考虑了决策过程中研究人员与政策制定者不同程度的审议情况。这些项目均是研究人员开展的各种评估工作的一部分，旨在探索治理在健康促进活动中的应用。
选取三个案例研究，以提供一些具体例子来说明默里类型学的每个层次。这些例子涉及跨部门健康促进合作，将健康政策倡议中的循证研究与不同程度的研究人员参与相结合。对于所有这三个项目，访谈数据以相同方式整理，进行主题编码并分析，以考量研究人员与政策制定者之间的关系。
比较这三种模式及其在健康促进干预中的适用性，可以观察到所有项目都展示了研究转化的成功案例。构建关系的强有力治理要求带来了更成功的结果，即研究成功转化为一项公共政策倡议，进而改善了健康状况。所有这些模式的关键理念是，强有力的治理安排缓解了不同程度的审议和研究人员参与过程中所体现出的一些障碍。
本文表明，成功的研究利用与强有力的治理议程相关，相关决策者和研究人员在治理过程（即研究的概念化和实施）中的早期及持续参与往往是成功的最佳预测指标。
