| Scientist | Policymaker | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Narrow work | Broad, popular work | | Aims to be Professor | Aims to be Mr. Fix It | | Work with their own language, intends to be read by other scientists | Communicate in their own language, with acronyms, confidential | | Time: the longer the study, the better. One narrow subject area to build expertise and track record | Time is an enemy. Everything must be fast, instant, and timetable > quality. | | Science is an exclusive club | Resent scientists arrogance, untimely scientific input, impossible to understand or contextualize | | Evidence: quantitative, can be assessed in rigorous, repeatable ways | Evidence: more informal, and more based on quick reflections of reality for policy making. | | Decision-making: slow and cumulative | Decision-making: "evidence" might conflict with values and beliefs of policy makers, so [[systemic bias]] happens due to policymakers cherrypick evidence to support their claims. | | Public image: wise people, respond with scientific rationality | Public image: powerful people (not necessarily respected), responds with political rationality | # The Solution Success stories: European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Milbank Memorial Fund, both of which use the "[[Knowledge Translation (KT)|knowledge broker]]" mode. In the UK, the network of public health observatories is already bridging the gap between policy and academic communities. A good example: [[Health Evidence Network]] set up by [[World Health Organization (WHO)]]. Interesting to note that personal contact is the most numerous facilitating aspect. ![[CleanShot 2024-10-22 at [email protected]]] [[Open Question]] Should there be incentives for scientists or policy makers if they take the initiative to build a dialogue with their counterparts? What kind of incentives for policymakers and for scientists? [[Question]] Should there be knowledge brokers (or translational scientists) to go between scientists and policy makers? [[Knowledge Translation (KT)]] will bridge the gap between policymakers and scientists. A critical role of KT is to translate demand for evidence (from policymakers side) and retranslate information that comes from the research community—in a way that is understandable and transparent, including evidence that is "in conflict" with what policy makers have already decided. Knowledge brokers can also assist scientists to think about "lighthouse" indicators when attempting to attract the attention of policymakers. [[Question]] Should there be organisational capacity building interventions? Mechanism and processes within organisations to ensure there is input from researchers and policymakers, eg, American Association for the Advancement of Science has a programme where scientists are actively encouraged to enter the policymaking arena. Public policy arena is changing, and probably now we need Chief Knowledge Officer. [[Question]] Should the knowledge transfer starting point be re-defined? Do most of the current ‘‘research to policy’’ efforts focus on the wrong ‘‘starting point’’ (that is, the researchers)? “The trick here is to connect science with policy, and policy with science. It is desirable to have both ‘‘evidence based policy’’ and ‘‘policy based evidence’’.41 In other words, policies should be based on evidence, and once policies have been formulated, there should be evidence on how to achieve the set goals, and to develop, implement, and evaluate needed strategies. There is no better way than to have policy makers intimately engaged in the science.30 However, one must be careful to make sure that ‘‘evidence based policy making’’ does not become ‘‘policy based evidence making’’—that is, creating and selecting evidence that suits and justifies certain formulated policies.” (Choi et al., 2005, p. 635) [[Question]] Should it be recognised that scientists and policy makers are not equal partners, and therefore additional work must be done to promote their dialogue? They are not equal. From scientists perspective, their relationship with policymakers is one to one, while from policymakers' perspective, it's many-to-one.