The policy worker and the professor: understanding how New Zealand policy workers utilise academic research

Abstract

How do policy workers actually use academic research and advice? While there are several recent studies regarding this question from other Westminster jurisdictions (e.g. Talbot and Talbot, 2014, for the UK; Head et al., 2014, for Australia; Amara, Ouimet and Landry, 2004 and Ouimet et al., 2010, Canada), similar academic studies have been rare in New Zealand. So far, most of the local research in this field has been conducted by the prime minister’s chief science advisor and the Office of the Prime Minister’s Science Advisory Committee, with the particular instrumental purpose of improving the government’s ministries and agencies’ ‘use of evidence in both the formation and evaluation of policy’. However, none of these studies have asked how, and to what extent, policy workers in government are utilising academic research  in their everyday work.