RAPID Knowledge

Abstract

In 2007, the Overseas Development Institute was named ‘Think Tank of the Year’ by Public Affairs News, the European political information, public affairs and policy communication magazine. On receiving the award, then Director, Simon Maxwell, said the Institute’s ‘research, policy advice and public affairs are all directed at a single aim: to inspire and inform policy and practice …’ (ODI, 2007). The Institute is only one among many organisations that seek to ‘bridge research and policy’. Philanthropic foundations, national social science funding regimes, development agencies and international organisations have long sought to improve the use of development research in policy. Similarly, research consumers — such as NGOs and government departments — have bemoaned the lack of relevance of research disseminated by (social) scientists. As a consequence, some universities, think tanks and scholarly societies have initiated programmes to go beyond research communication to promote knowledge utilisation in policy processes.