Closer collaboration between universities and the third sector could lead to significant improvements in public policymaking, a report by the Carnegie UK Trust argues.

In his introduction to , Martyn Evans, chief executive of the trust, cites evidence that ¡°universities¡¯ research results are little used by policymakers and practitioners even though they are the most trusted source of evidence¡±.

Those in Whitehall were unsympathetic to ¡°the narrow focus of things like the research excellence framework ¡®impact¡¯ agenda¡±, since they were ¡°less concerned with the impact of a specific piece of research and much more interested in cumulated knowledge and expertise¡±.

Yet if ¡°third-sector organisations¡¯ research (and especially that of thinktanks)¡± is less trusted but more widely read than what emerges from the academy, Mr Evans goes on, this leaves ¡°clear scope for universities and third-sector organisations to explore working together to influence policy and practice, building on the trust enjoyed by university research, while also capitalising on voluntary and community organisations¡¯ apparently greater success in reaching policy and practice¡±. ?

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Such themes are taken up by the report¡¯s author, Mark Shucksmith, professor of planning and director of the Institute for Social Renewal at Newcastle University.

The third sector, he writes, is keen to engage with universities for a number of reasons: to ¡°enhance the status and trust accorded to their own reports and attempts to influence policy and practice¡±; to ¡°access expert knowledge¡± and ¡°the various resources of universities¡±, including peer-reviewed journals normally protected by paywalls; and to obtain ¡°evaluation[s] of their work, usually to support a further funding application¡±.

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Yet the last of these tended to ¡°have a low priority for academics, unless there is sufficient novelty for it to have potential to score highly in the research excellence framework¡±.

More generally, the round table discussions that formed part of the background research for the report highlighted ¡°a common view that universities are not easy partners for the third sector¡±, since they are seen as ¡°difficult to engage with, highly fragmented and siloed, and naively unaware of the policy world¡±. One of the problems was an outmoded attitude that ¡°only universities produce knowledge¡±, which then has to be ¡°transferred¡± to ¡°users¡±.

Professor Shucksmith goes on to flag up ways of bridging this divide.

Newcastle University has embraced a vision to become ¡°a world-class civic university¡±, committed to ¡°respond[ing] to the needs and demands of civil society¡±, and other institutions have pursued similar initiatives.

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More radical is the idea of merging the realms of science and policy in the ¡°co-production of knowledge¡­in ways which interfere with conventional research practices and roles of researchers, such that science goes beyond providing information and becomes involved in the process of governance itself¡±.

matthew.reisz@tesglobal.com