Why Funders Are Investing in Studies About Research Use

Governments and philanthropies spend billions of dollars every year on research to improve policies and practices across education, health, environment, and beyond. But studies show that generating masses of high-quality research alone does not mean that the findings will be used effectively in policy or practice. A growing number of funders are seeking to understand what they can do to ensure that research is used alongside other types of evidence to improve outcomes for people and the planet.

Five influential funders—the British Academy, Canada’s International Development Research Centre, the Education Endowment Foundation, the U.K.’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s Research Commissioning Centre, and the William T. Grant Foundation—have recently invested in studies about research use through distinct grant-making programs. Their investments together total more than $18 million. The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Impact Funders Forum and the William T. Grant Foundation have convened the funders to take stock of what they are learning. Simultaneously, several high-profile, funder-focused efforts—including the Pathways Project and Aligning for Impact—have launched to help translate insights about research use and impact into action. Across different countries, policy areas, and disciplines, these diverse groups of funders have found a shared goal: building knowledge about how to close the gap between research and outcomes—that is, better lives and livelihoods.

What is “research on research use”?

While many government agencies and philanthropies invest in science communication, expert advising programs, research partnerships, and other activities that translate academic findings for decision-makers, research on research use asks, “Which of these strategies work? When, under what conditions, how, and why?”

For example, studies show that practitioners (such as educators and healthcare providers) are unlikely to apply research to their day-to-day work simply because they have access to evidence via clearinghouses and databases. Evidence also shows that plain language briefs or primers are not enough to regularly inform policymakers.

Instead, key lessons from decades of research on research use studies reveal the following:

• Timing and relevance are important: Research is more likely to be used when it speaks directly to a problem a decision-maker is facing, in their specific context, rather than when it is presented as general findings.
• Relationships matter: Trust, not just accessibility, often determines whether research gets considered. For example, decision-makers are more likely to turn to trusted advisors, colleagues, and networks they know than academic journal articles, databases, or other research resources.
• Evidence use sticks when it’s built in, not tacked on: Research better informs decisions when it’s embedded into an organization’s routines so staff have regular opportunities to make sense of the findings in their own context, rather than when a research product is introduced as a stand-alone resource.

Despite these important lessons, research on research use doesn’t yet offer much evidence about links between research use (for example, when it contributes to a policy change) and the outcomes we hope to achieve (when an evidence-informed policy helps improve a target outcome). These gaps are precisely what these funders are trying to help address.

Why funders working together matters

In the past, insights generated by investments in studies on research use from funders working in different policy areas, countries, and disciplines would have been disconnected from one another, each building their own field-specific research repositories, communities, terminologies, technologies, and approaches. That’s no longer the case today.

Motivated by the same core questions about how research use can improve outcomes, these leading organizations have chosen to coordinate their learning across distinct grantmaking programs and other activities by sharing findings rather than working in isolation. Some funders are aligning investments; some are contributing insights from decades of work on positioning research for use; and others are participating in collaborative projects that seek to transform study into action.

This new effort lays the groundwork for a global, evidence-building effort that can fill gaps in our understanding, develop common methods and measures, and create opportunities to bring insights together so that researchers and funders from otherwise disconnected fields can learn with and from one another.

As findings from these long-standing and new research investments roll out, the funders plan to work with partners to identify actionable insights that can shape funding practices and priorities. Research on research use can help build bridges between worldwide initiatives and improve our understanding about how to better deliver positive outcomes for people and the planet.

Ben Miyamoto leads engagement for the Impact Funders Forum for The Pew Charitable Trusts.