Understanding and Engaging with the Research-Policy Interface: A System-Of-Systems Approach to Evidence and Technology Uptake

The research-policy interface has attracted high and productive interdisciplinary scholarly attention but exposed key tensions between aims and perspectives. A key challenge has emerged: to reconcile understandings between researchers trying to understand or improve the role of evidence or technology in policymaking. These foci could be mutually informative, and essential for science and technology-driven innovation, if researchers recognise then interrogate the differences in perspectives that emerge from a primary focus on research engagement for policy or researching policy processes. We propose a system-of-systems framework to enable rigorous reflection on two key questions: what systems do researchers or policymakers think they are engaged in; and, to what extent are systems understandable and open to their influence? To illustrate, we use a case study of research engagement to promote policy innovation and the organisational uptake of new technology to support ‘healthy working environments’, backed by qualitative interviews and systematic review to understand occupational safety and health policy and practice. This approach helps to identify many analytically distinct systems including evidence-policy, policy problem, policy mix, policymaking, and socio-technical systems. This framework helps to clarify the connection between different applications of systems thinking and prevent researchers and policymakers talking at cross purposes when they seek to understand and influence evidence-policy and socio-technical systems.