Engaging the Public in Policy Research: Are Community Researchers the Answer?

Abstract

A case has been made for engaging the public in scientific research as co-producers of knowledge. These arguments challenge elite models of policy research and suggest the need for an ambitious expansion of more inclusive scientific public policy research. Enabling the public to be meaningfully involved in complex policy research remains a challenge. This paper explores a range of attempts to involving the public in public policy research. It uses a binary framing to typify some key debates and differences in approaches between community-based participatory research, and citizen science. Approaches to community-based participatory research in the social sciences offer a set of engagement principles which are an alternative to an elite model of policy research. Citizen science offers a focus on the use of scientific methods by lay people, but this approach is currently under-utilized in public policy research and could be expanded. How could the strengths of each be more fully integrated and harnessed? A case study of community policy research is presented, in which an attempt was made to use a more fully integrated approach in a local policy context, identifying the potential and challenges. Based on a framework of three features of democratic and scientific policy research, it argues that more public participation in public policy research would be helped by more attention to the strengths of the democratic potential emphasised by participatory community-based research, alongside the potential of scientific robustness em-phasised by citizen science. One conclusion drawn is that a professional and scientific orientation to public policy re-search can be retained without necessarily being professionally dominated. Research methods and skills are tools to which more people outside the profession could have access, if academics facilitate the process of democratization of policy research.

‘Student Switch Off!’: how do university students respond to a corporate-sponsored pro-environmental social marketing campaign?

“…To reduce interviewer bias a student from University Y was responsible for the data collection. This approach is aligned with the view that engaging the regular citizen and the public in research would be beneficial (Richardson, 2014). The student involved in this project and who collected the survey and vox pop data was a representative of the student community which was exposed to the Student Switch Off campaign.…”

Leadership and the hidden politics of co-produced research: a Q-methodology study

“…Yet practice has out-paced the theorising of co-production, resulting in a range of normatively orientated studies, and fewer critical reflections on the distinctiveness or effectiveness of such knowledge production processes (cf Hemström et al, 2021). In some of the debates, normative considerations loom so large they pose a danger of crowding out important concerns of robustness and reliability of scientific methods (Richardson, 2014).…”

“…However, what has typically been less clear in such debates is how any potential tensions might be resolved within a piece of research, for example, between experiential ways of knowing, and established research methodologies (c.f. Richardson, 2013;2014).…”

“…Yet, co-producing research rarely starts with a blank sheet, and is informed by antecedent power as well as prior experiences and expectations. Attention has been paid to practical barriers to co-production, such as time and resources, and there has been critical analysis of the claims made (Orr et al, 2009;Martin, 2010;Richardson, 2014). The 'hidden politics' of co-production as a research approach (Flinders et al, 2016) have also been identified.…”

Engaging with Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review of Participatory Methods and Approaches in Research Informing the Development of Health Resources and Interventions

“…By involving the end user in research activities, these approaches facilitate action, which makes them ideal to use in the development of interventions and resources (Baum et al, 2006). Participatory approaches stem from critical theory and constructivism paradigms but contemporary participatory approaches may use a wide range of qualitative or quantitative methodologies and methods (Richardson, 2014). Their origins have been attributed to Paulo Freire's work with disadvantaged communities in Brazil, whereby a participatory approach was used to empower communities to evaluate the causes of their poverty (Freire, 1972).…”