Making Research Matter for Policy: Creating Real World Change

“No one reads our papers,” is a common lament among policy researchers.  It’s not far from the truth, but it misses the point.  How do policymakers actually consume information, how do researchers get it to them, and how do we create real world change?

Robert Cook-Deegan (Arizona State University) has worked on both sides of the policy puzzle for over four decades.  First at the congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), then the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), and now in academia,  Cook-Deegan has seen how to put policy research into the hands of those actually making policy choices—passing legislation, preparing executive orders, legislative oversight of executive action, funding and budgeting, and other government actions—on a schedule and in a form useful to them.

On February 2 at 9 AM ET, join Robert Cook-Deegan for a New Tools in Science Policy seminar on how to achieve meaningful policy impacts through creating ongoing relationships with policymakers and understanding their needs. He will share three case studies on topics ranging from Alzheimer’s to integrating new technologies into the healthcare system. They vary in specificity and ripeness for policy change.  The studies will illustrate which methods are best suited to different messages and to different policymaking audiences with different jurisdictions.