Institutional Amnesia and the Rise of Public Health Knowledge Brokers

Abstract

This chapter describes how organisations have no long term memory, due to the short time frames within which policy makers work, and rapid turnover of staff. This can result in the same ideas being recycled. Researchers in search of funding or employment may fail to point this out. A possible advantage of this phenomenon is that a worthy idea rejected once may be accepted in its recycled form. There has been a recent growth in knowledge broker organisations, which aim to link research producers with research users and thus increase and improve the use of public health research in policy. Such organisations seem to have been welcomed, but their funding is often short term and small scale and so the likelihood of them supplying a solution for institutional amnesia seems small.