The world is currently facing numerous challenges such as climate change coupled with unpredictable rainfall patterns, population growth surpassing the available resources, increased social mobility, high poverty levels, widening gap of social and regional disparities and disease pandemics. Public policies that seek to address these challenges can only provide workable solutions if the decisions made by decision-makers are informed by well researched information.
Research publications are an indispensable way of communicating scientific findings to the world. It can inform policymaking that has the potential to transform lives for the better. However, most people view research as a gateway to achieving academic goals.
Researchers need to ensure their work has an impact on public policy by engaging policymakers at various stages during their research work, ensuring that their published work is simplified that even non academicians can understand and making the findings readily available in non-traditional research article types, such as newspapers and magazines
Furthermore as a researcher, you can improve the credibility to your findings by making your data readily available in various platforms e.g. in Figshare
Researchers need to familiarise themselves with current topics that represent public policy so as to make sure that their work related to the agenda of public policy instead of them creating their own topics.
You post is universally spot-on and even more-so for places that do not have a culture of research.
Ensuring that one is attuned to topical issues that relate to your research interests is fundamental and as you rightfully pointed out, the use of various platforms can prove instrumental in both collecting data and disseminating information beyond solely those in academia.
Research conducted in a proactive and progressive manner, via engagement of the requisite principles (e.g. government, civil society, the citizenry at-large...all stakeholders) serves a meaningful purpose toward influencing the development of suitable policy, its implementation and practise.
As a result, I am strong advocate of Open Data.
Dear Job,
I want to respond to your discussion in a way that will keep colleagues focused and activist to work on solutions for how to make open access pieces relevant to those who will use them. Your discussion is already starting to turn academic but we need to improve the open access that we have because it is not having the impact it could.
I'll suggest a few solutions of how we can work together and invite colleagues to do so, and then I will discuss some of the background.
I. We still only have a couple of open access book publishers and they are not policy focused or really open. We need to start a few where we have bases. I'm happy to join boards of places doing this and have several works that fit.
II. Open access journals do not last long and even places that say they support them are now putting political pressures on them. Like other journals, they deteriorate into just promoting self interest or narrow ideologies. So we need to work together in the same way as I, above, or we just become meaningless.
III. Getting results still means being seen on the Internet through search engines and monied interests are able to promote their works better. We need better advocacy with what we have. For example:
a) ResearchGate used to allow us to put our work in categories but they have eliminated this. Rather than improve the ability to categorize works (really we should be able to in multiple categories, with key words) so that it is easier to find a cluster of works that are related, by an author, in a cluster of certain policies, they eliminated this. After they did this, I noticed that access to my works dropped about 40%. Before, you could find my works by categories like "indicators for development/ sustainable development" or "cultural heritage policy" or by country.
b) I notice that those articles that people have mentioned on Wikipedia are those that get the most reads. Those are not my most important or best articles but Wikipedia won't allow authors to enter their own discoveries. Oranizations pay Wikipedia to promote their work for influence. We need to help each other to highlight our important works in places like that.
This is what we need to do to ensure that this great new tool that we have of open access can meet its potential with the audiences in which we have an advantage: (1) professionals who are outside university libraries but use the internet, (2) scholars in the Global South or in small universities who do not have access to large libraries and use the Internet, and (3) the general public (who are the REAL decision-makers who need to force governments to act; not the paid or narrowly influenced decision-makers who have no incentive to promote progress on those issues that you list) and who may do Internet searches for pieces useful to them.
If you look at my ResearchGate site, you can see that in the last few years I have been trying to publish almost entirely open access and to make sure that my research pieces include more TOOLS that can be used by researchers, the public and decisionmakers directly for policy benefits: tools like INDICATORS and measurements to hold government actors accountable; designs of projects that can achieve results; and social scientific pieces that are not just long academic journalism but show how systems work and don't work so we know where to focus resources for change and where not to be distracted just by slogans. But it is still very hard to get materials into a debate.
Two other quick comments on your post:
- I think you have a typo and mean DECREASED social mobility, and not "increased";
- I think you need to recognize the importance of the public and of democratic pressure to improve policy. "Policy makers" are often appointed to oppose change and have no interest in appropriate information or new approaches. For most of the problems we face today, there were solutions decades ago and most of what is written as solutions just repeats what we have known for decades. Most of the solutions are in the literature but they are buried so that they cannot be found. Scholars and researchers work to divert attention to them. So what we often need to do is uncover and promote what already exists. Open access can do that if we are effective with some of the focus that I suggest and that others can add to.
Best,
David Lempert, Ph.D., J.D., M.B.A., E.D. (Hon.)