IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rsocxx/v10y2015i2p126-137.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Using evidence to improve policy and practice: the UK What Works Centres

Author

Listed:
  • Dan Bristow
  • Lauren Carter
  • Steve Martin

Abstract

The creation of a network of What Works Centres in the UK reflects a belief that the provision of high-quality evidence can improve public policy decisions. The literature on evidence-based policy suggests that rational, technocratic models belie the complex and contested nature of the policy process and that What Works Centres are likely to face a number of challenges as they seek to synthesise and mobilise knowledge. Wide variations are found between the What Works Centres in terms of their resources, the evidence standards they use, their audiences and approaches to transmitting evidence. Tracking their development and their impact over time should, therefore, provide valuable insights about 'what works' in promoting evidence-based policy and practice. In particular, it may shed further light on what counts as 'robust' and 'useful' evidence, and what are the most effective means of mobilising research-based knowledge, thereby enhancing our understanding of the contribution that social science research can make to policy and practice.

Suggested Citation

  • Dan Bristow & Lauren Carter & Steve Martin, 2015. "Using evidence to improve policy and practice: the UK What Works Centres," Contemporary Social Science, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(2), pages 126-137, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rsocxx:v:10:y:2015:i:2:p:126-137
    DOI: 10.1080/21582041.2015.1061688
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/21582041.2015.1061688
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/21582041.2015.1061688?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bonell, Chris & Fletcher, Adam & Morton, Matthew & Lorenc, Theo & Moore, Laurence, 2012. "Realist randomised controlled trials: A new approach to evaluating complex public health interventions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(12), pages 2299-2306.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sedlačko Michal & Staroňová Katarína, 2018. "Internal ministerial advisory bodies: An attempt to transform governing in the Slovak Republic," Central European Journal of Public Policy, Sciendo, vol. 12(1), pages 1-16, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wolfgang A. Markham & Alan Dolan & Graham F. Moore, 2021. "A Sociological Framework to Reduce Aberrant Behaviour of School Students Through Increasing School Connectedness," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(3), pages 21582440211, July.
    2. Hawe, Penelope & Riley, Therese & Gartrell, Alexandra & Turner, Karen & Canales, Claudia & Omstead, Darlene, 2015. "Comparison communities in a cluster randomised trial innovate in response to ‘being controlled’," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 102-110.
    3. Mulhall, Peter & Taggart, Laurence & Coates, Vivien & McAloon, Toni & Hassiotis, Angela, 2018. "A systematic review of the methodological and practical challenges of undertaking randomised-controlled trials with cognitive disability populations," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 114-128.
    4. Warren Pearce & Sujatha Raman, 2014. "The new randomised controlled trials (RCT) movement in public policy: challenges of epistemic governance," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 47(4), pages 387-402, December.
    5. Humphreys, David K. & Eisner, Manuel P., 2014. "Do flexible alcohol trading hours reduce violence? A theory-based natural experiment in alcohol policy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 1-9.
    6. Busse, Heide & Campbell, Rona & Kipping, Ruth, 2018. "Examining the wider context of formal youth mentoring programme development, delivery and maintenance: A qualitative study with mentoring managers and experts in the United Kingdom," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 95-108.
    7. Hatcher, Abigail M & McBride, Ruari-Santiago & Rebombo, Dumisani & Munshi, Shehnaz & Khumalo, Mzwakhe & Christofides, Nicola, 2020. "Process evaluation of a community mobilization intervention for preventing men’s partner violence use in peri-urban South Africa," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    8. Mélanie Villeval & Elsa Bidault & Jeannie Shoveller & François Alias & Jean-Charles Basson & Catherine Frasse & Jean-Paul Génolini & Elisabeth Pons & Damien Verbiguié & Pascale Grosclaude & Thierry La, 2016. "Enabling the transferability of complex interventions: exploring the combination of an intervention’s key functions and implementation," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 61(9), pages 1031-1038, December.
    9. Legrand, Karine & Minary, Laetitia & Briançon, Serge, 2018. "Exploration of the experiences, practices and needs of health promotion professionals when evaluating their interventions and programmes," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 67-72.
    10. Margaret Dalziel, 2018. "Why are there (almost) no randomised controlled trial-based evaluations of business support programmes?," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(1), pages 1-9, December.
    11. Ligia Kiss & David Fotheringhame & Joelle Mak & Alys McAlpine & Cathy Zimmerman, 2021. "The use of Bayesian networks for realist evaluation of complex interventions: evidence for prevention of human trafficking," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 25-48, May.
    12. Melendez-Torres, G.J. & Warren, Emily & Viner, Russell & Allen, Elizabeth & Bonell, Chris, 2021. "Moderated mediation analyses to assess intervention mechanisms for impacts on victimisation, psycho-social problems and mental wellbeing: Evidence from the INCLUSIVE realist randomized trial," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 279(C).
    13. Gyeongcheol Cho & Younyoung Choi & Ji-Hyun Kim, 2020. "Investigating the Unintended Consequences of the High School Equalization Policy on the Housing Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-9, October.
    14. Massazza, Alessandro & May, Carl R. & Roberts, Bayard & Tol, Wietse A. & Bogdanov, Sergiy & Nadkarni, Abhijit & Fuhr, Daniela C., 2022. "Process evaluations of mental health and psychosocial support interventions for populations affected by humanitarian crises," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 303(C).
    15. Busse, Heide & Campbell, Rona & Kipping, Ruth, 2018. "Developing a typology of mentoring programmes for young people attending secondary school in the United Kingdom using qualitative methods," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 401-415.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rsocxx:v:10:y:2015:i:2:p:126-137. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/rsoc21 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.