“A modern research profession’: government social research, evidence-based policymaking and blind spots in contemporary governance research

ABSTRACT

Recent debates on evidence-based policymaking have demonstrated limited engagement with the history of the Government Social Research (GSR) profession and its role in facilitating the translation of evidence into policy. Though there was a concerted scholarly focus on social research functions within government during the 1980s and 1990s, the recent limited focus on these professions has led to a ‘blind spot’ in contemporary governance research. As a case in point, the United Kingdom's GSR profession offers a critical vantage point upon which to develop new insights into the relationship between evidence and policy. We argue that just as the GSR profession is currently undergoing significant reform programmes, there is a critical need for a critical research agenda on the composition of research professions within governments. Such a research agenda would reflect on crucial questions about the interface between research evidence and other government functions. In conclusion, we offer four starting points for a comparative, interdisciplinary, transnational research agenda, focusing on the effects of reform programmes for (1) researchers’ professional identities and values, (2) organisational change processes, (3) accountability challenges, and (4) intra-professional relationships with evidence producers.

KEYWORDS:

• Government social research
• evidence-based policymaking
• governance
• accountability
• public administration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 If we are to understand some of these strategic priorities, we should also see this concern with diversity and inclusion in light of analysis of underrepresentation of minority groups in doctoral training pathways in the social sciences (UKRI, 2021).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Julian Molina

Julian Molina is a lecturer in Public Policy at the University of Bristol. As a former government social researcher, he currently works on the contemporary history of the social sciences and administrative criminologies, government analytical professions and their data infrastructures. He is currently working on studies of the first British Crime Survey, the history of social research within the Home Office and the politics of policing racial attacks before the Macpherson report.

John Connolly

John Connolly is a former public servant having worked as an evaluator of complex public health interventions before entering academia on a full-time basis. Before joining Glasgow Caledonian University, he was a professor of Public Policy at the University of the West of Scotland. His research has been funded by major funding bodies including the Economic and Social and Research Council (ESRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), as well as public bodies such as NHS Education for Scotland and the Scottish Government. He is currently working with Indian partners at IIT Bombay to examine the global threats posed by antimicrobial resistance in the environment. Professor Connolly is a former Editor in Chief of Contemporary Social Science journal (the flagship journal of the Academy of Social Sciences) and is currently the Chief Editorial Adviser for Routledge Open Research (Social Sciences).