Indicators at the interface: managing policymaker-researcher collaboration

Abstract

The knowledge transfer literature encourages partnerships between researchers and policymakers for the purposes of policy-relevant knowledge creation. Consequently, research findings are more likely to be used by policymakers during policy development. This paper presents a set of practice-based indicators that can be used to manage the collaborative knowledge creation process or assess the performance of a partnership between researchers and policymakers. Indicators for partnership success were developed from 16 qualitative interviews with health policymakers and researchers involved with eight research transfer partnerships with government. These process and outcomes indicators were refined through a focus group. Resulting qualitative and quantitative indicators were judged to be clear, relevant, credible, and feasible. New findings included the need to have different indicators to evaluate new vs mature partnerships, as well as specific indicators common to researcher-policymaker partnerships in general.