Query: Policy research

title: Designing Difference in Difference Studies: Best Practices for Public Health Policy Research.
abstract: The difference in difference (DID) design is a quasi experimental research design that researchers often use to study causal relationships in public health settings where randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are infeasible or unethical. However, causal inference poses many challenges in DID designs. In this article, we review key features of DID designs with an emphasis on public health policy research. Contemporary researchers should take an active approach to the design of DID studies, seeking to construct comparison groups, sensitivity analyses, and robustness checks that help validate the method's assumptions. We explain the key assumptions of the design and discuss analytic tactics, supplementary analysis, and approaches to statistical inference that are often important in applied research. The DID design is not a perfect substitute for randomized experiments, but it often represents a feasible way to learn about casual relationships. We conclude by noting that combining elements from multiple quasi experimental techniques may be important in the next wave of innovations to the DID approach.

title: Qualitative data analysis for applied policy research

title: Confidentiality, anonymity and power relations in elite interviewing: conducting qualitative policy research in a politicised domain
abstract: While the methods used to study 'elites' are of particular relevance in policy research, to date there has been little examination of the particular challenges associated with 'elite' interviewing in this field. More specifically, the issues associated with interviewing 'elites' while conducting qualitative research in a contested policy domain, especially if policy processes are being studied as they play out in real time, remain underexplored. While the extant literature on 'elite' interviewing has begun to grapple with the notions of 'power' and 'vulnerability' the question of how these notions might need to be rethought in the context of a politicised policy domain remains open for examination. This article provides a methodological and reflexive account of the challenges associated with conducting research in one highly contested policy domain, namely, drug policy. Drawing on examples from a study which examined Australian drug policy processes, this article examines issues associated with anonymity and confidentiality produced through power relations between researcher and participant, particularly as these play out in a contested policy domain. In doing so, this article critically reflects on the practical and political implications for data collection, analysis and reporting of policy research.

title: Assemblage thinking as methodology: commitments and practices for critical policy research
abstract: Assemblage thinking as methodology: commitments and practices for critical policy research. Territory, Politics, Governance. The concept of assemblage has captured the attention of critical social scientists, including those interested in the study of policy. Despite ongoing debate around the implications of assemblage thinking for questions of structure, agency, and contingency, there is widespread agreement around its value as a methodological framework. There are now many accounts using assemblage inflected methodologies of various sorts as analytical tools for revealing, interpreting, and representing the worlds of policy making, though few are explicit about their methodological practice. In this paper, we identify a suite of epistemological commitments associated with assemblage thinking, including an emphasis on multiplicity, processuality, labour, and uncertainty, and then consider explicitly how such commitments might be translated into methodological practices in policy research. Drawing on a research project on the development and enactment of homelessness policy in Australia, we explore how three methodological practices adopting an ethnographic sensibility, tracing sites and situations, and revealing labours of assembling can be used to operationalize assemblage thinking in light of the challenges of conducting critical policy research.

title: Why equity is fundamental in climate change policy research
abstract: In an Editorial now published in "Global Environmental Change" 18 climate policy researchers argue that analyses of equity and justice are absolutely essential for our ability to understand climate politics and contribute to concrete efforts to achieve adequate, fair and enduring climate action for present and future generations. Climate change action is too important not to address the issue of equity; failing to do so risks the collapse of the new regime.

title: Environmental and sustainability education policy research: a systematic review of methodological and thematic trends
abstract: This paper reports on a systematic literature review of policy research in the area of environmental and sustainability education. We analyzed 215 research articles, spanning four decades and representing 71 countries, and which engaged a range of methodologies. Our analysis combines quantification of geographic and methodological trends with qualitative analysis of content based themes. Significant findings included temporal spikes in published policy research occurring in the mid 1970s, late 1990s, and after 2005, as well as geographic under representation of Africa, South and Central America, Eastern Europe, and North and West Asia. The majority of articles reviewed were non empirical; empirical articles overwhelmingly focused on teaching and learning directives, rather than exploring the complexity of policy development or enactment. We conclude our analysis by describing key research gaps as highlighted by the review and propose directions for moving forward policy research in environmental and sustainability education. In particular, we suggest greater research attention to critical policy theory and methodology, issues of intersectionality, and climate change education policy research. By outlining in greater detail the policy research that has been undertaken to date, the review provides a platform for a broadened diversity of policy studies in environmental and sustainability education.

title: The challenge of bridging the gap between researchers and policy makers: experiences of a Health Policy Research Group in engaging policy makers to support evidence informed policy making in Nigeria
abstract: BackgroundGetting research into policy and practice (GRIPP) is a process of going from research evidence to decisions and action. To integrate research findings into the policy making process and to communicate research findings to policymakers is a key challenge world wide. This paper reports the experiences of a research group in a Nigerian university when seeking to 'do' GRIPP, and the important features and challenges of this process within the African context.MethodsIn depth interviews were conducted with nine purposively selected policy makers in various organizations and six researchers from the universities and research institute in a Nigerian who had been involved in 15 selected joint studies/projects with Health Policy Research Group (HPRG) The interviews explored their understanding and experience of the methods and processes used by the HPRG to generate research questions and research results; their involvement in the process and whether the methods were perceived as effective in relation to influencing policy and practice and factors that influenced the uptake of research results.ResultsThe results are represented in a model with the four GRIPP strategies found: i) stakeholders' request for evidence to support the use of certain strategies or to scale up health interventions; ii) policymakers and stakeholders seeking evidence from researchers; iii) involving stakeholders in designing research objectives and throughout the research process; and iv) facilitating policy maker researcher engagement in finding best ways of using research findings to influence policy and practice and to actively disseminate research findings to relevant stakeholders and policymakers.The challenges to research utilization in health policy found were to address the capacity of policy makers to demand and to uptake research, the communication gap between researchers, donors and policymakers, the management of the political process of GRIPP, the lack of willingness of some policy makers to use research, the limited research funding and the resistance to change.ConclusionsCountry based Health Policy and Systems Research groups can influence domestic policy makers if appropriate strategies are employed. The model presented gives some direction to potential strategies for getting research into policy and practice in the health care sector in Nigeria and elsewhere.

title: The roots and routes of environmental and sustainability education policy research
abstract: Environmental Education Research has developed a Virtual Special Issue (VSI) (http:/explore.tandfonline.com/content/ed/ceer vsi) focusing on studies of environmental and sustainability education (ESE) policy. The VSI draws on key examples of research on this topic published in the Journal from the past two decades, for three reasons. First, to provide readers with a series of snapshots into the genealogy of ESE policy research in this field. Second, to encourage renewed attention to previously published work. And third, to offer commentary on the evolution of research trends, approaches and findings.

title: What is policy? 21 years later: reflections on the possibilities of policy research
abstract: This paper is a reflection on What is policy? Texts, Trajectories and Tool Boxes, which was first published in 1993,  Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. It looks back to what the 1993 paper was trying to do and at some of the developments of the ideas first sketched there in my later work, in particular in the book How Schools Do Policy (2012) It also considers the continuing tensions between domination and agency, discourse and text, in policy research and the misuse of the concept of discourse in some policy analysis work.

title: Which public and why deliberate? A scoping review of public deliberation in public health and health policy research.
abstract: Deliberative methods are of increasing interest to public health researchers and policymakers. We systematically searched the peer reviewed literature to identify public health and health policy research involving deliberative methods and report how deliberative methods have been used. We applied a taxonomy developed with reference to health policy and science and technology studies literatures to distinguish how deliberative methods engage different publics: citizens (ordinary people who are unfamiliar with the issues) consumers (those with relevant personal experience e.g. of illness) and advocates (those with technical expertise or partisan interests) We searched four databases for empirical studies in English published 1996 2013. This identified 78 articles reporting on 62 distinct events from the UK, USA, Canada, Australasia, Europe, Israel, Asia and Africa. Ten different types of deliberative techniques were used to represent and capture the interests and preferences of different types of public. Citizens were typically directed to consider community interests and were treated as a resource to increase democratic legitimacy. Citizens were preferred in methodological studies (those focused on understanding the techniques) Consumers were directed to focus on personal preferences; thus convened not as a source of policy decisions, but of knowledge about what those affected by the issue would accept. Advocates who are most commonly used as expert witnesses in juries were sometimes engaged to deliberate with consumers or citizens. This almost always occurred in projects directly linked to policy processes. This suggests health policymakers may value deliberative methods as a way of understanding disagreement between perspectives. Overall however, the 'type' of public sought was often not explicit, and their role not specified. This review provides new insight into the heterogeneity and rising popularity of deliberative methods, and indicates a need for greater clarity regarding both the constitution of publics and the relative usefulness of different deliberative techniques.