Background

The challenge of overcoming the so-called ‘know-do’ gap between research evidence and policy action has been an area of intermittent focus for four decades. Unlike its ‘close cousins’ of supporting informed decisions at the citizen/patient level and at the clinician level, the field cannot point to a variety of strategies of proven effectiveness. Instead what we have are a number of promising strategies that need to be rigorously evaluated across a variety of issues and contexts. Some of these strategies focus on the ‘supply side,’ helping researchers and knowledge brokers better position research evidence alongside the many factors that influence policymaking, such as institutional constraints, interest group pressure, and values. Other strategies focus on the ‘demand side,’ helping policymakers to recognize the value of seeking out the best available research evidence when they need it to inform the policymaking process.

Objective & aims

The workshop’s main objective is to show participants how they can engage in strategies to support evidence-informed policymaking. Specifically, participants will learn about the theoretical and empirical foundations to strategies (putting their own research in the context of the best available research evidence to inform policymaking; combining the best available research evidence with all of the other factors that influence policymaking; stimulating demand among policymakers). Furthermore, participants will apply their new knowledge in preparing an outline of an evidence brief, organizing a stakeholder dialogue, and identifying the knowledge, attitudes and skills required of a policymaker who wishes to be a leader in evidence-informed policymaking. Finally, participants will exchange their own experiences with and ideas about applying these and other strategies in their own research and in their future work.

Prof John Lavis

John N. Lavis, MD PhD, holds the Canada Research Chair in Evidence-Informed Health Systems. He is the Director of the McMaster Health Forum, Co-Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre on Evidence-Informed Policy, Associate Director of the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis, Professor in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and Associate Member of the Department of Political Science at McMaster University. He is also Adjunct Professor of Global Health, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. His research focuses on how to support the use of research evidence in health policymaking, both in high-income countries like Canada and in a broad range of countries internationally.