'Good quality policy making depends on high quality information, derived from a number of sources - expert knowledge; existing domestic and international research; existing statistics; stakeholder consultation; evaluation of previous policies; new research, if appropriate; or secondary resources, including the internet' (Professional policy making in the 21st Century, Ch. 7 [Cabinet Office website])
This area of Policy Hub provides access to a wide range of organisations and resources that will help you find evidence on social and economic issues in the United Kingdom and Internationally.
The links below provide access to three further menus on UK Evidence:
The page includes information on the following:
The page includes information on the following:
The page includes information on the following:
Use this section to find evidence on social and economic issues for countries around the world.
Alternative Approaches to Modelling Work Incentives: Comments on the issues/Ian Walker, University of Warwick and IFS - presentation given at DWP seminar 'A Role for Laboratory Experimentation in Evaluating Welfare-to-Work Programmes in Britain?', 24 September 2004
Assessing quality in applied and practice-based educational research: a framework for discussion/John Furlong and Alis Oancea , Oxford University Department of Educational Studies, 2005 - the result of a project commissioned by the ESRC to clarify the terminology and concepts involved, so that appropriate quality criteria might be developed to assess the effectiveness of this type of research.
Assessing research impact: report of RURU Seminar 3, 15-16 January 2004 / Walter I., Nutley S.M. and Davies H.TO., University of St. Andrews. Research Unit for Research Utilisation, 2004
Australia and New Zealand Health Policy - online journal of research and commentary
Benefits - the only journal focusing specifically on social security, social inclusion and anti-poverty policies in the UK. It is particularly concerned with making research, policy and practice developments accessible to practitioners in the field.
A better quality of life: a strategy for sustainable development for the UK. TSO, 1999. This outlines the UK strategy on sustainable development and brings the environment, social progress and the economy alongside each other at the heart of policy making.
Better service, better working lives: how health and education services are delivering for women (1.08MB) This report published by the Cabinet Office's Women and Equality Unit in December 2001 reports on research into the experiences of women in both using and working in health and education services and provides examples of best practice in the delivery of better services in these spheres.
Connecting Research and Practice. Education for Sustainable Development National Foundation for Educational Research, 2003 - provides important insights into the challenges and benefits of making the connection between research and practice in education, through:
Criminal punishment and restorative justice: past present and future perspectives - Waterside Press, 2005 - contains contributions by leading experts. It charts the background to and present day developments in this field and also urges a more emphatic move towards restorative, rather than purely punitive methods for offenders.
Designing a Demonstration Project: An Employment, Retention and Advancement Demonstration in Great Britain (445kb), 2nd edition, GCSRO, Cabinet Office Strategy Unit, 2004. (Occasional Paper 1) (Provides a detailed description of the research design for evaluating the Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) Demonstration Project). A summary is also available.
A difficult business: finding the evidence for social science reviews by Lesley Grayson and Alan Gommersall, ESRC UK Centre for Evidence based Policy and Practice, 2003 (Working Paper 19)
The EBPP Bibliography has been compiled by the Evidence Network and includes many searchable references on systematic review, the use of research evidence by policy makers and practitioners and key UK documents on the evidence-based approach.
Enhancing the value of health statistics: user perspectives: a report by the Statistics Commission - Statistics Commission, 2004
Government Research, Statistics and Economics Publications This area lists Government publications and other outputs providing evidence on social and economic issues.
Guidance for Communicating Research Evidence (pdf) Policy makers often make the point that the key findings of social research and other types of analysis are hard to identify, or are buried in the rather dense text of research reports. The Canadian Health Services Research Foundation has developed an excellent two page guidance note on how to present and communicate research findings for policy makers and practitioners. It is called the 1:3:25 method and refers to the need to publish:
This approach has been used by government departments and agencies in Canada, Australia, the USA, the UK and other countries. Other guidance notes for communicating research results to non-research audiences is available at: on the CHSRF website (pdf)
Improving the Understanding of Food, Farming and Land Management Amongst School-Age Children: a Literature Review. DfES, 2003 - looks at what is known about young people's (3-19) views towards, and learning about, food, farming and land management. It draws together the findings of 190 pieces of research published internationally in English between 1960-2002.
Improving the use of research in Social Care / Walter I., Nutley S.M., Percy-Smith J, McNeish D, Frost S., Social Care Institute for Excellence and the Policy Press, 2004. (Knowledge Review 7)
The institutional arrangements for connecting research and policy: the case of drug misuse / Nutley S.M., Bland N., Walter I., Public Policy and Administration, (2002), 17(3): 76-94
Is evidence-based government possible? - Campbell Collaboration, Jerry Lee lecture 2004 by Philip Davies
Making qualitative judgements of quality (special issue of Building Research Capacity, May 2004, Issue 8, Cardiff: Cardiff University School of Social Sciences. Research Capacity Building Network - features responses by Ruth Boyask, Elizabeth Murphy and Robert Dingwall, Saville Kushner, Harry Torrance to the GCSRO publication Quality in qualitative evaluation: a framework for assessing research evidence?
Reaching the poor with health services: what works, what doesn’t, and why (pdf) / edited by Davidson R. Gwatkin, Adam Wagstaff, Abdo S. Yazbeck - Washington DC, World Bank, 2005 - marshals the available evidence about pro-poor strategies that have proven to be effective and that can help in the development of programmes to better assist disadvantaged groups. In doing so, it can serve as a resource for policy makers, development practitioners, and policy analysts concerned with health conditions among the poor.
School education statistics: user perspectives.-Statistics Commission, 2004 - (Report no. 26) - Statistics Commission, 2005
The significance of null in December 2004 issue of APA Monitor. Featuring the Campbell Collaboration, it describes how 'a group of social scientists hunts down unpublished studies and aims to inform policy through thorough meta-analysis'.
Sociology and policy science: just in time? Philip Davies of GCSRO is the author of this article in the September 2004 issue of British Journal of Sociology
Research impact: a cross sector review / Walter I., Nutley S.M., Davies H.T.O., University of St. Andrews. Research Unit for Research Utilisation, 2003
Researchers and their 'subjects': Ethics, power, knowledge and consent/ Edited by Marie Smyth and Emma Williamson, Policy Press, 2004
Researching social policy: the use of qualitative methods by Sue Duncan and Alan Hedges. (This article looks at the social policy role of qualitative research, based mainly on group discussion techniques. This article first featured in the July/August 2002 issue of Local Government News and we are grateful to the publishers of LGN for their permission to publish on Policy Hub)
A Review of Research on Outdoor Learning, Field Studies Council, 2004 - this review examines research relating to three types of outdoor learning:
A role for laboratory experiments in developing labour market policy? a DWP perspective/ Mike Daly, Family and Disability Analysis Division, Work, Welfare and Poverty Directorate, Department of Work and Pensions - presentation given at DWP seminar 'A Role for Laboratory Experimentation in Evaluating Welfare-to-Work Programmes in Britain?', 24 September 2004.
The significance of null in December 2004 issue of APA Monitor. Featuring the Campbell Collaboration, it describes how 'a group of social scientists hunts down unpublished studies and aims to inform policy through thorough meta-analysis'.
Social Research Update - Social Research Update is produced quarterly by University of Surrey to help social researchers keep up with latest developments in methods of doing social research.
What is evidence: suggested further reading This reading list is designed to inform the debate about what evidence is and how it should be best used.