How partnerships between researchers, DFID advisers and government can contribute to societal impact; case studies from ESRC-DFID’s Raising Learning Outcome programme

• In Event: The role of evidence in advancing policy to raise learning outcomes equitably for sustainable development

Proposal

This article will set out a perspective from the UK’s Department for International Development on the policy contexts into which ESRC/DFID-funded research on education feeds.

Case studies from Pakistan, India and Uganda will be explored, each of which is a focus for research projects under the ESRC/DFID Raising Learning Outcomes programme.

The case studies will focus on the policy debate relevant to the funded research but will not be direct assessment of the impact that this research has had. Rather, this article will explore the messy and iterative processes that DFID advisers are engaged in: the networks that they are embedded within (and those they are not), the way that they use partnerships to access and promote evidence into policy debate, and the other drivers that matter. The paper will draw on literature on the role of aid donors as brokers and translators, as well as that on how research shapes policy in aid-dependant contexts.

It will be authored by the DFID Education Research Team that co-funds the Raising Learning Outcomes programme, based on the series of interviews with country-based DFID education advisers.

Author

• Laura Savage, DFID