Call for Case Abstracts
"Collaboration and Innovation: Exemplars of Academic and Policy Entrepreneurs"
Special E-PARCC Competition
in collaboration with
The University of Texas Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs
Deadline: February 15, 2015
As part of a broader National Science Foundation initiative, the LBJ School is looking for examples of academics and policymakers successfully collaborating together to help move innovative research findings into the policy environment, to achieve the greatest social impact possible. However, increasing evidence shows that the movement of such knowledge can be fraught with challenges, including researcher's lack of knowledge of their relevant policy environments, how to connect with and incorporate the views of appropriate stakeholders, and how best to shape products to share findings with busy public servants and relevant stakeholder communities. This case competition is envisioned to develop examples of successful translation processes between academics and policymakers, to help support the development of a national curriculum designed to train social scientists to do the same. Selected cases will be published on EPARCC and used to inform this national curriculum. Further instructions are below.
Please submit a 1-2 paragraph case abstract by February 15 to datoole@syr.edu. Authors of selected abstracts will be requested to write full cases by August 15. Prizes will be awarded for the best entries.
Case Focus: The Challenge
In an era of increasingly complex policy challenges, defined and acted upon by a diverse and wide-ranging set of stakeholders (e.g. legislators, public administrators, and a wide range of community leaders), the successful transfer of scientific knowledge requires an understanding of, and sustained engagement in, policy development and implementation.
Increasing attention is being paid to major obstacles that most significantly impede the creation and success of the academic-research-policy nexus:
- Lack of evidence of the individual catalytic qualities that successfully support the translation of social science research findings to the policy community,
- Lack of examination of the characteristics of the enabling environments that support the translation of research to the policymaking community, and
- Lack of efforts to reassess and modify incentives to better support the relationship between academics and policymakers.
A basic element of this challenge is developing the necessary skills that social scientists can apply to better shape and sustain social change. This requires a reframing of the focus of researcher from a predominately academic orientation, to one of an integral contributor throughout the policy life cycle. This reorientation requires a set of specific skills, including the abilities to:
- Overcome disincentives inherent in academic cultures,
- Collaborate with actors across multiple sectors with diverse incentives and institutional constraints,
- Build and sustain trusting relationships,
- Identify common shared values,
- Engage early and consistently in the policy development and implementation processes, and
- Communicate knowledge in accessible formats.
Case Elaboration: The Specifics
This call for cases is aimed at unearthing a range of successful examples of translation experiences between academics and practitioner communities. The preferred format would be a fully developed teaching case, designed as a live "exemplar," with participants willing to participate in a live case discussion, to be delivered through a web-based classroom environment.
Preferred case focus would be on all, or some, of the following aspects:
- Essential elements of the processes used to develop and establish relationships aimed at achieving a sustained exchange of knowledge across sectors:
- Newer academics or more senior professors working individually with policy actors,
- Research centers working in collaboration with non-profit or government agencies,
- Roles played by diverse incentives and work cultures:
- Traditional academics working around barriers and disincentives inherent in the academic complex (i.e. tenure or publication requirements),
- Descriptions of enabling environments that have surmounted traditional barriers,
- Examples of less traditional methodologies employed to build collaborations between academics and stakeholder communities, or
- Identification of catalytic skills or value orientations of individual researchers successfully leading the movement of knowledge between academia and the policymaking communities.
Answers to five related questions could be the basis of the case framing:
- How did participants initially identify and understand their policy environment, relevant policymakers and stakeholder communities?
- How did participants initially communicate with their policy environment, relevant policymakers and stakeholder communities?
- How did participants interact collaboratively across, and between, a range of policy environments?
- What kinds of specific skills appear to be necessary to develop entrepreneurial research relationships?
- How did participants build and nurture relationships with a range of actors fundamental to the research translation process?
- How did participants engage in the collaborative process of applying innovative research findings to practical problems?