Positioning Universities as Honest Knowledge Brokers: Best Practices for Communicating Research to Policymakers

• Published date: 01 July 2020
• Author: Karen Bogenschneider
• Date: 01 July 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12339

K B University of Wisconsin–Madison

Positioning Universities as

Honest Knowledge Brokers: Best Practices for

Communicating Research to Policymakers

Universities are one of few institutions posi-

tioned to address a critical challenge facing the

United States—the drift toward hyperpartisan

and interest-driven politics. To build better

public policymaking, many policymakers have

called for the rigorous research and dispassion-

ate analysis that universities are well positioned

to supply. To improve communication between

knowledge producers and policy consumers, a

framework is applied that species the types of

conceptual and logistical knowledge that honest

knowledge brokers need: know-why (action is

required), know-about (barriers to research

utilization in policymaking), know-what (pol-

icy issue is timely and research is relevant),

know-who (to target), and know-how (to effec-

tively communicate research to policymakers).

The experiences learned from the long-standing

Wisconsin Family Impact Seminars are used

to describe the potential payoff when univer-

sities communicate high-quality, nonpartisan

research to policymakers.The article elaborates

on best practices to leverage the deliberately

dispassionate and disproportionately powerful

contributions that universities can make to

policymaking.

Department of Human Development and Family Studies,

2187 Nancy Nicholas Hall, 1300 Linden Drive, University

of Wisconsin–Madison WI 53706 (kpbogens@wisc.edu).

Key Words: evidence-based policy,Family Impact Seminars,

research utilization.

Public policymaking is not working as well as it

could or should for families. Clearly,public poli-

cymaking could be improved if it were informed

by rigorous research and dispassionate analysis.

Using hard evidence to inform policymaking has

generated a level of interest among policymakers

that has been characterized as “revolutionary” by

Ron Haskins, cochair of the newly established

Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking

(Haskins & Baron, 2014). The Commission

exemplies the bipartisan interest in using

research to inform government decisions, given

its sponsorship by Republican Speaker Paul

Ryan and Democratic Senator Patty Murray

(Milner, 2016). Or take, for instance, how pol-

icymaking has been “revolutionized” by recent

administrative rules that require federal funds to

be allocated to those programs with evidence of

effectiveness in reaching their goals (Haskins &

Margolis, 2014). Basing funding decisions on

evidence has bipartisan appeal: It resonates with

conservatives who want to cut programs that do

not work and with liberals who want to enact

programs that do work.

A groundswell of interest also has emerged

from the researcher end of the research–policy

equation. In studies, a clear majority of

researchers want to connect with policymakers

(McMurtrie, 2013), given how gratifying it is

when their studies make their way out of the

pages of scholarly journals and into the hands

of lawmakers who can bring them to bear on

policy decisions (Grisso & Steinberg, 2005).

628 Family Relations 69 (July 2020): 628–643

DOI:10.1111/fare.12339

Communicating Research to Policymakers 629

Despite this interest from policymakers

and researchers alike, partisan and ideological

debates often drive wide and irreconcilable

divides. However, research sometimes prevails

on certain issues, with family policy being

an example (Bogenschneider, Day, & Parrott,

2017a). How can we exploit these bipartisan

opportunities so that research is used more fre-

quently and with greater effect? Some individual

researchers have made a substantial impact on

a single, high-prole policy issue (Grisso &

Steinberg, 2005). In other cases, on campuses

across the country, researchers have dabbled in

providing research seminars for policymakers,

but soon give up when few legislators attend.

Such efforts that happen on a hit-or-miss basis

are unlikely to reverse the continuing drift

toward hyperpartisan and interest-driven pol-

itics that threaten to undermine good public

policymaking (Milner, 2016). Universities are

well positioned to serve as honest knowledge

brokers between knowledge producers and

policy consumers.

To illustrate the potential of university

engagement in policymaking, this article draws

on the experiences of a university-and/or

extension-sponsored effort, which has operated

in public and private institutions in a couple

dozen states over the past quarter century, to

effectively communicate research to policymak-

ers using Family Impact Seminars (hereafter,

usually referred to as Seminars). The purpose of

this article is not to promote any single model

of knowledge brokering, but rather to identify

best practices that leverage the unique contribu-

tions that universities are positioned to make to

policymaking.

As background, the Seminars are an ongoing

series of presentations, discussion sessions, and

brieng reports that communicate high-quality

and nonpartisan research to state policymakers

on timely topics. University faculty and Exten-

sion Specialists have convened more than 225

Seminars across the country on family issues,

broadly dened to include education, economic

development, health care, jobs, and long-term

care, among others. Seminars have addressed

controversial issues (e.g., gambling, Medi-

caid, tax policy) and often focus on vulnerable

children, youth, and families (e.g., children of

incarcerated parents, foster care, homelessness,

immigrant families, racial and ethnic infant mor-

tality, school dropouts). This proven, replicable,

and cost-effective model, originally developed

for Congress under the leadership of Theodora

Ooms, has been adapted to states that vary

widely in institutional conguration, political

ideation, and partisan polarization.

Previous writing on the Family Impact Semi-

nars has taken a panoramic view such as a grand

theory of why research is underutilized in pol-

icymaking (Bogenschneider & Corbett, 2010),

the Seminar’s core principles and their impacts

across two dozen states (Bogenschneider, 2014),

and the partnership-based infrastructure that the

Seminars are built on (Bogenschneider, Shager,

Little, & Eddy, 2017). This article is distinct

in that it offers a telescopic view of the con-

ceptual and logistical knowledge that it takes

to convene university-sponsored seminars that

leave policymakers enthusiastic about the rel-

evance of research and the approachability of

researchers. This article is the rst to overview

the on-the-ground training, technical assistance,

and extensive implementation manuals devel-

oped for Seminar organizers, which is concep-

tualized according to a new framework of the

W. T. Grant Foundation (Maciolek, 2015) that

species the array of knowledge needed to solve

social problems. The framework encompasses

the macro mindset (big picture thinking) that

effective knowledge brokering demands and the

micro mindset (operational practices) on which

successful execution depends. Both mindsets are

essential for the holistic approach it takes to

solve social problems. As put by a Canadian pro-

fessor and cabinet minister:

All the emphasis on leaders as heroes and on

glamorous but unusual events distractsus from the

realization that the success of most organizations

is much more dependent on doing all the little

things right than it is on a few big successes. In

the longer run, all the operational details have a

powerful effect on overall success. (Levin, 2005,

pp. 42–43)

To provide what universities need to know

about becoming an honest knowledge broker,

the focus of this article is twofold. It begins with

one of the initial questions universities ask when

considering the investment of time and resources

it takes to engage with policymakers: What are

the benets of assuming the costs of becoming

an honest knowledge broker? To examine the

potential payoffs for both knowledge producers

and policy consumers, the article turns to the

track record of the Wisconsin Family Impact

Seminar, the longest standing site in the country.