Evaluation of the Research to Policy Collaboration Model

Summary

This work aims to evaluate an approach for improving federal legislators' use of evidence-known as the Research-to-Policy Collaboration (RPC) - which seeks to address known barriers to policymakers' use of research, including a lack of personal contact between researchers and policymakers and limited relevance of research translation efforts to current policy priorities. The RPC involves structured processes for identifying policymakers' priorities, building researchers' capacity for nonpartisan responses to current policy priorities, and facilitating ongoing and productive researcher-policymaker interactions. This implementation of the RPC will focus on child and family policies relevant to child maltreatment.

This study assesses both processes for collaboration and policymakers' use of research within a randomized controlled trial (RCT) employing a mixed methods approach-including quantitative and qualitative evaluation of impact. The proposed project will be guided by three overarching questions:

1. How does the RPC impact researchers and legislative staff?
2. How does the RPC impact legislative activity?
3. How might perceptions and experiences of collaboration through the RPC relate to different forms of evidence use among researchers and policymakers?

The RPC's effectiveness will be tested through experimental design (randomization) using qualitative and quantitative assessments of researcher-policymaker interactions and impact. This includes surveying congressional staff and researchers, reviewing records of policymaker's public statements and introduced legislation, and conducting qualitative interviews around researchers' and legislative staffs' experiences with researcher-policymaker collaboration prior to and during the RPC.

Conditions

• Legislation
• Policy
• Child Abuse
• Family and Household

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Research-to-Policy Collaboration

The RPC is a behavioral intervention through which RPC Researchers and RPC Congressional Offices are prepared and matched for collaboration. Specifically, congressional offices are asked to identify opportunities for researcher engagement in policy efforts, researchers with expertise related to policy opportunities are identified and prepared to collaborate with congressional offices, researchers and congressional staff are matched for ongoing collaborative partnerships, and both researchers and congressional staff receive ongoing support to facilitate research translation.

BEHAVIORAL

Light Touch Policy Training

Control Researchers are provided information on policy engagement via email.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• William T. Grant Foundation

  collaborator OTHER

• Penn State Social Science Research Insititute

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

  collaborator OTHER

• Child Trends

  collaborator OTHER

• Penn State University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• D. Max Crowley, Ph.D. · Penn State University

• J. Taylor Scott, Ph.D. · Penn State University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2019-01-08

Primary Completion

2021-02-17

Completion

2021-02-17

Countries

• United States
• United Kingdom

Study Locations