About the Registry
Search the Registry
Suggest a Method or Tool
User Stories
Your dashboard is a one-stop shop for accessing various NCCMT resources, tracking your progress as you work through available training opportunities, saving evidence syntheses and publications, and building your own toolkit to match your evidence-informed decision making needs.
Log in to your free NCCMT account to save this method or tool to your dashboard.
Your dashboard is a one-stop shop for accessing various NCCMT resources, tracking your progress as you work through available training opportunities, saving evidence syntheses and publications, and building your own toolkit to match your evidence-informed decision making needs.
This National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools' resource summary is no longer maintained. If you have any further questions, connect with us at nccmt@mcmaster.ca.
This method examines how civil servants use research to inform policy within three identified spheres of policy activity. Based on interviews with civil servants in the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, Research and Advice Giving: A Functional View of Evidence-Informed Policy Advice in a Canadian Ministry of Healthexamines how research evidence is used to set policy agendas, develop new policies and monitor or modify existing policies.
This method examines:
how civil servants use research to inform policy
models of research use in policy
a framework for functional use of research in policy
This framework for research use in policy states that the functional relationship between civil servants and evidence differs in three areas of policy activity (agenda setting, policy development, policy monitoring/modification), which in turn requires different tools to encourage and support research use. This model developed at the provincial level reflects a similar framework at the national level developed by Lavis et al. (2006) for linking research to policy:
push efforts by knowledge producers
pull efforts by user
exchange efforts
integrated efforts
Steps for Using Method/Tool
Methods for using research to inform policy depend on the type of policy activity.
1) Setting an agenda
Research and information is pushed at the civil servant.
Research may be used to identify neglected or emerging issues that need to be on the policy setting agenda. In addition, it can support an issue being addressed.
2) Developing new policies
Research and information is pulled by the civil servant.
Research is used to inform specific recommendations under a deadline. It can improve confidence in making a recommendation, as well as provide external validation for a policy proposal.
3) Monitoring and modifying existing policies
There is an ongoing exchange (or linkage and exchange) between researchers and civil servants, developing collaborative, long-term relationships for the production of evidence.
Research is used to determine whether to revise a policy or adjust implementation, and contributes to accountability through monitoring data on performance.
These summaries are written by the NCCMT to condense and to provide an overview of the resources listed in the Registry of Methods and Tools and to give suggestions for their use in a public health context. For more information on individual methods and tools included in the review, please consult the authors/developers of the original resources.
We have provided the resources and links as a convenience and for informational purposes only; they do not constitute an endorsement or an approval by McMaster University of any of the products, services or opinions of the external organizations, nor have the external organizations endorsed their resources and links as provided by McMaster University. McMaster University bears no responsibility for the accuracy, legality or content of the external sites.