Investigating the production and communication of evidence by the Productivity Commission: Apolitical, political, or somewhere in between?

Abstract

The Australian Productivity Commission (PC) is an inquiry body of international renown, which Australian governments engage to obtain objective evidenceinformed recommendations regarding a wide range of policy issues. Despite its prominence in the Australian policy landscape, there has been little empirical investigation into its practices. This study sought to under-18

Research use and publishing diversity: The role of organisation research publishing for policy and practice

“…There is a considerable body of literature on the use of research in public policy and practice and the related area of evidence-based or evidence-informed policy (for summaries of this literature, see Head, 2016;Nutley et al, 2007). There have also been many detailed case studies of research use and impact in specific policy and practice areas such as public health (Davies et al, 2015;Escoffery et al, 2018;Strauss et al, 2013), education (Cooper, 2014;Gorard, 2020;White, 2020), public administration (Althaus et al, 2021;Cherney et al, 2015;Head, 2015;Shaxson & Boaz, 2021), environmental studies (Reed & Meagher, 2019), social work (Hughes et al, 2021), and many other fields. However, despite the proliferation of studies, there is much frustration that the use of research in public policy is still limited, and concern that the reasons why are still not fully understood Davies et al, 2015;Langer et al, 2016;Nutley et al, 2007;Williams & Lewis, 2021).…”

“…Claims and counterclaims are the fundamentals of research, policy, and practice, and engaging in debates of this sort requires a range of evidence (Dunn, 2018). This has seen the rise of think tanks, research centres, knowledge brokers, and ‘knowledge‐based policy influence organisations’ based in government, non‐profit, commercial, and education sectors, producing and disseminating a range of research publications and outputs that aim to inform and influence policy decision‐making (Green et al., 2022; Lawrence, 2018; Stone, 2009; Wellstead & Howlett, 2022). The contested nature of politics and public policy decision‐making and the complexity of the evidence ecosystem have been recognised in the preference for more nuanced terms, such as evidence‐informed rather than evidence‐based policy, that better reflect the position of research evidence within a complex, dynamic, and multicentric policy process (Boaz et al., 2019; Cairney et al., 2019; Head, 2016).…”