Evidence to Policy
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Interloping in the world of local authority research: initial lessons from a research platform
Local authorities make wide use of evidence and research in their decision and policy making. However, with persistent funding cuts, the level of capacity and skills within councils, and the allocation of resources to internal evidence and research activities has come under increased pressure over the past few years. How ready are researchers to respond to this new landscape? Drawing on recent experiences of establishing an ‘inclusive’ research platform, I reflect on our efforts thus far at entering this arena.
Traditionally, in-house activities within local authorities, such as gathering evidence on service user outcomes or new support delivery models, have made the most significant contribution to their evidence and research, which is used in decision and policymaking. A recent report by the Local Government Knowledge Navigator has indicated that the sustained nature of the cuts has curtailed local authorities’ overall research capacity and driven many to become more strategic about obtaining evidence and research from other sources. This context therefore has the potential to fundamentally transform the relationship between local authorities and the academy.
What space can be potentially negotiated by University researchers in filling this gap? Can research partnerships help to enable researchers to get their research into the hands of local authorities –or as they struggle to maintain their role, can researchers go one step further and ‘co-produce’ research with councils?
As a lecturer in Geography, I recently co-founded SPIRIT – Southampton Platform for Inclusive Research and Ideas Together. The main motivation was to build a closer coalition with my research constituency – in my case people with a learning disability and their representative advocacy organisations. The question above about how to make an impact on the work of local authorities was also firmly on my mind.
With the support of an ESRC Impact Acceleration Account Award, SPIRIT has taken its first steps in navigating this terrain. Co-founded with Professor Melanie Nind (Education, University of Southampton), we both wanted to create a space for people with disabilities and their representative organisations to be more centrally involved in taking part in and shaping our research at the University of Southampton. We also wanted to build up relationships that could last both outside and during the lifecourse of research projects.
Having now established closer ties with these individuals and groups, we have been able to capitalise on their closer relationships with disability leads in local authorities and commissioning groups. Our platform members are in regular contact with representatives in these policy roles and the platform has allowed us to become fervent interlopers within this space.
At our opening launch event, local authority and clinical commissioning group representatives from Southampton, Dorset and Hampshire attended. One significant challenge they identified was the difficulty in identifying relevant and applicable research. The event opened up a dialogue where these policy delegates learned more about the research that we were doing. And importantly, we were also able to encourage them to support future research endeavours.
Following the event, two of the delegates openly accepted our invitation to write letters of support for a funding proposal that we submitted during the summer 2016. The letters acknowledged the value of the research we were proposing and indicated that they would be keen to link this closely with the Southampton, Hampshire, Isle of Wight & Portsmouth (SHIP) Transforming Care Programme for people with Learning Disabilities.
While the outcome of the bid has not yet been announced, our work to date has shown the value of building a research platform that can cultivate and sustain closer networks with local authorities over time. Moreover, for future research projects, having such connections from the outset of projects can allow local authorities to more readily take on board the outcomes from a project. Such an approach can therefore help break down the expectation that impact can only be achieved from the ‘hammer blow’ of an end-of-study dissemination event, where researchers eagerly try to win over hearts and minds from afar.
Dr Andrew Power
Andrew is Lecturer in Geography at University of Southampton. He is particularly interested in the field of disability research, particularly on how personalisation is changing the landscape of social care and its impacts on people with disabilities. Andrew has recently been researching peer-advocacy models of support, where adults with a learning disability are coming together to ‘self-build’ their own support networks in the wake of day service reform.