The Many Meanings of Research Utilization
1979/09/01 by Carol H. Weiss · 2,215 citations
Decision Sciences · #Business #Evaluation and Performance Assessment #Political science #Sociology
paper · doi:10.2307/3109916
published in Public Administration Review 39(5), 426 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 1979/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Abstract
This is a time when more and more social scientists are becoming concerned about making their useful for public policy makers and policy makers are displaying spurts of well publicized concern about the usefulness of the social science that government funds support. There is mutual interest in whether social science intended to influence policy is actually used but before that important issue can profitably be addressed it is essential to understand what using actually means. A review of the literature reveals that a diverse array of meanings is attached to the term. Much of the ambiguity in the discussion of research utilization-and conflicting interpretations of its prevalence and the routes by which it occurs-derives from conceptual confusion. If we are to gain a better understanding of the extent to which social science has affected public policy in the past and learn how to make its contribution more effective in the future we need to clarify the concept. Upon examination the use of social science in the sphere of public policy is an extraordinarily complex phenomenon. Authors who have addressed the subject have evoked diverse images of the processes and purposes of utilization. Here I will try to extract seven different meanings that have been associated with the concept. (excerpt)
Cited by
- Assessing the effectiveness of Finland’s sustainable development policy to facilitate a sustainability transition
- The influence of public policy and administration expertise on policy: an empirical study
- The invisible impact of educational research
- Revisiting the Base in Evidence-Based Policy
- Public deliberation and the fact of expertise: making experts accountable
- The production of “evidence” for migrant integration policy in the European Union
- How evidence-based policymaking helps and hinders policy conflict
- Beyond Citations: Measuring Idea-level Knowledge Diffusion from Research to Journalism and Policy-making
- Monitoring use of knowledge and evaluating outcomes
- How Can Research Organizations More Effectively Transfer Research Knowledge to Decision Makers?
- Training researchers to engage in policy in the United States: mapping the growth and diversity of programme models
- Variation in evidence use across policy sectors: the case of Brazil
- Influential scientists shape knowledge flows between science and IGO policy
- Technical Legitimacy
- Time tactics in public administration: evidence from a survey experiment
- Morality boundary work in the making of the needle and syringe exchange program in Stockholm
- The Role and Contribution of Academic Researchers in Congressional Hearings: A Critical Discourse Analysis
- Evidence for the future? Strategic foresight as a source of evidence for policymaking
- Uncovering drivers of climate research in policy with pretrained language models
- On the development of criteria for determining the effectiveness of technical working groups: A case study about information processes in marine conservation and fisheries management in Belize
- Steering the future: expert knowledge and stakeholder voices in autonomous vehicle policy reports
- Public use and public funding of science
- Scientification of politics or politicisation of science? Parliamentary committee hearings on the Finnish alcohol policy reforms in 1994 and 2017 as epistemic work
- A narrative policy framework analysis of Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts
- Blocked and “Unblocked” Learning: Structural Factors That Impede and Enable Evidence‐Informed Policymaking
- Do research characteristics matter? Policymakers’ interest in evidence and expectations about policy improvement
- Could I Write Like Carol Weiss?
- Understanding the science-policy interface: Case studies on the role of information in fisheries management
- What is business school research for? Academic and stakeholder perspectives, politics and relationality
- Information Processing and Changes to Local Governments' Practices Amid Intensifying Environmental Hazards
- Scientists, Knowledge, and Coalitions: A Discourse Network Analysis of Offshore Wind Debates
- Reframing knowledge translation for health policy in Kenya: actors, practices and the constitutive role of context
- Expert‐Based Information and Policy Subsystems: A Review and Synthesis
- Expert knowledge and policymaking: a multi-disciplinary research agenda
- How does scientific research influence policymaking? A study of four types of citation pathways between research articles and AI policy documents
- Enlightenment, politicisation or mere window dressing? Europeanisation and the use of evidence for policy making in Bulgaria
- Policy analysis in the face of complexity: What kind of knowledge to tackle wicked problems?
- The Epistemic Impact of Large Language Models on Policymaking
- Evidence‐Based Policymaking and Spatial Planning. Factors of Evidence Utilization
- Exploring the governance of wicked problems: insights from South Africa's Breede Valley urban food system
- Evidence for Healthy Cities: reflections on practice, method and theory
- Methods for mapping the impact of social sciences and humanities—A literature review
- Measuring societal impact of research—Developing and validating an impact instrument for occupational health and safety
- Theorizing societal impact of research. A theory of change for societal impact of research with explicated assumptions
- A research roadmap for evidence-informed policymaking in tourism
- Evaluating societal impact–refining an instrument to measure indicators at programme and institution level
- Governing by narratives: REF impact case studies and restrictive storytelling in performance measurement
- How universities facilitate city network socialization through knowledge exchange on immigrant integration
- The dos and don’ts of influencing policy: a systematic review of advice to academics
- Research and Knowledge in Ontario Tobacco Control Networks
- Information in Communicative Planning
- Describing the impact of health research: a Research Impact Framework. [europepmc]
- Factors influencing the utilization of research findings by health policy-makers in a developing country: the selection of Mali's essential medicines. [europepmc]
- Interventions aimed at increasing research use in nursing: a systematic review. [europepmc]
- The intellectual structure and substance of the knowledge utilization field: a longitudinal author co-citation analysis, 1945 to 2004. [europepmc]
- Study protocol for the translating research in elder care (TREC): building context - an organizational monitoring program in long-term care project (project one). [europepmc]
- Increasing the use of evidence in health policy: practice and views of policy makers and researchers. [europepmc]
- A realist evaluation of the management of a well-performing regional hospital in Ghana. [europepmc]
- Who needs what from a national health research system: lessons from reforms to the English Department of Health's R&D system. [europepmc]
- The relationship between characteristics of context and research utilization in a pediatric setting. [europepmc]
- Public health: disconnections between policy, practice and research. [europepmc]
- Evidence summaries tailored to health policy-makers in low- and middle-income countries. [europepmc]
- Validation of the conceptual research utilization scale: an application of the standards for educational and psychological testing in healthcare. [europepmc]
- Community-based knowledge translation: unexplored opportunities. [europepmc]
- Implementing health research through academic and clinical partnerships: a realistic evaluation of the Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC). [europepmc]
- A systematic review of the psychometric properties of self-report research utilization measures used in healthcare. [europepmc]
- Studying policy implementation using a macro, meso and micro frame analysis: the case of the Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research & Care (CLAHRC) programme nationally and in North West London. [europepmc]
- A realist review of interventions and strategies to promote evidence-informed healthcare: a focus on change agency. [europepmc]
- A systematic review of barriers to and facilitators of the use of evidence by policymakers. [europepmc]
- Critical examination of knowledge to action models and implications for promoting health equity. [europepmc]
- A review of policy dissemination and implementation research funded by the National Institutes of Health, 2007-2014. [europepmc]
- Assessing the impact of healthcare research: A systematic review of methodological frameworks. [europepmc]
- Advancing alcohol research in low-income and middle-income countries: a global alcohol environment framework. [europepmc]
- What happens after James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnerships? A qualitative study of contexts, processes and impacts. [europepmc]
- Aligning dissemination and implementation science with health policies to improve children's mental health. [europepmc]
- Ensuring patient and public involvement in the transition to AI-assisted mental health care: A systematic scoping review and agenda for design justice. [europepmc]
Related