This is a really great post, and I particularly appreciated the visual diagrams laying out the “problem tree.” A number of aspects of what you’re writing about (particularly choice of research questions, the lack of connection with the end user in designing research questions, challenges around research/evidence use in the real world, and incentives created by funders and organizational culture) strongly resonated with me. You might find it interesting to read a couple of articles I’ve written along these lines:
A short piece called “The Crisis of Evidence Use” gathers some empirical data illuminating just how deep the problem you’re describing runs. From my perspective the amount of waste in our collective knowledge-building systems is just, one might say, astronomical.
For strengthening the connection between commissioned research and end users, I’ve proposed a model of adding a decision support “wrapper” around the analytical activities to ensure relevance to stakeholder concerns. I welcome feedback and would love to find more partners to help test this idea in practice, so if you know anyone who’s interested, please get in touch.
Finally, I just wanted to note a number of overlaps between this post (as well as the meta-science conversation more generally) and issues we’re exploring in the improving institutional decision-making community. If you haven’t already, I’d like to invite you to join our discussion spaces on Facebook and Slack, and it may be worth a conversation down the line to explore how we can support each other’s efforts.
This is a really great post, and I particularly appreciated the visual diagrams laying out the “problem tree.” A number of aspects of what you’re writing about (particularly choice of research questions, the lack of connection with the end user in designing research questions, challenges around research/evidence use in the real world, and incentives created by funders and organizational culture) strongly resonated with me. You might find it interesting to read a couple of articles I’ve written along these lines:
A short piece called “The Crisis of Evidence Use” gathers some empirical data illuminating just how deep the problem you’re describing runs. From my perspective the amount of waste in our collective knowledge-building systems is just, one might say, astronomical.
For strengthening the connection between commissioned research and end users, I’ve proposed a model of adding a decision support “wrapper” around the analytical activities to ensure relevance to stakeholder concerns. I welcome feedback and would love to find more partners to help test this idea in practice, so if you know anyone who’s interested, please get in touch.
Finally, I just wanted to note a number of overlaps between this post (as well as the meta-science conversation more generally) and issues we’re exploring in the improving institutional decision-making community. If you haven’t already, I’d like to invite you to join our discussion spaces on Facebook and Slack, and it may be worth a conversation down the line to explore how we can support each other’s efforts.
Thank you! Joined both and looking forward to reading your posts!