A randomized experiment that measures the impact of a social policy in a sample of the population reveals whether the policy will work on average with universal application. An experiment that includes only the subset of the population that volunteers for the intervention generates narrower "proof-of-concept" evidence of whether the…

Despite increasing awareness of the importance of promoting the social responsibility of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals, few intervention programs have been developed to enhance the social responsibility of college students or adults in the STEM fields. In this paper, we introduced a new instructional…

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened an ad-hoc committee to examine learning and development in out-of-school time settings across the K-12 age span. To inform its deliberations, the committee held three public sessions, on October 19, 2023, February 8, 2024, and April 18, 2024. This publication summarizes the…

Background: Despite the known need for empirical research-to-policy studies, little is known about the factors and conditions needed to support meaningful evidence use or how to intervene to promote quality evidence use. Aims and objectives: To study research-policy processes empirically and descriptively, we conducted an ethnography that focused…

Europe's knowledge economies need high-level skills, the capacity to innovate and to support democratic societies. In this perspective, the main objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the relevance of higher education and how this is promoted in various countries in Europe and beyond. The evidence, conclusions and…

Europe's knowledge economies need high-level skills, the capacity to innovate and to support democratic societies. In this perspective, the main objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the relevance of higher education and how this is promoted in various countries in Europe and beyond. The evidence, conclusions and…

Advocacy for health policies and programs can impact large segments of the population with the goal of promoting and protecting the nation's health. Historically, advocacy has not been viewed as seriously as other components of health education, and involvement in public policy work has been moderate by health education practitioners and health…

Families have long been recognized for the contributions they make to their members and to society. Yet families are seldom substantively incorporated into the normal course of policy and program development, implementation, and evaluation. We propose the family impact lens as one way to shift the rhetoric from appreciating families to…

In the contemporary United States, marriage is closely related to money. Men and (perhaps to a lesser extent) women with more education, higher incomes, larger stocks of wealth, and more stable employment are more likely to marry than are people in more precarious economic positions. But is this relationship truly causal? That is, does economic…

Policy agencies are implementing strategies to increase the use of research in policy decisions. This paper examines the evidence about the effectiveness of these strategies. We conducted an extensive search focused on population health policy and programmes. We classified 106 papers meeting study criteria into research type (conceptual,…

Evidence-based policy-making and other recent reforms in public steering emphasize the role systematic evidence can play in improving decision making and public policies. Increasing deficits heighten the pressure on public authorities to legitimate public spending and to find savings. Existing studies show that the influence of research-based…

The importance of social capital as a resource for rural development, especially in the context of projects involving joint participation of state and civil society, is widely recognized today. This paper analyzes the obstacles confronted by local players--small farmers and government organizations--in the development of an irrigation area through…

This article examines the opportunities and limitations presented by organizing an undergraduate field research methods class as a policy think tank working for a government client. Organized as such, the course had both the learning objectives of a traditional undergraduate methods class and the corporate objectives of a policy think tank (i.e.,…

How effective are policy interventions to fight crime and how valid is the policy theory that underlies them? This is the twofold research question addressed in this article, which presents an evidence-based evaluation of Dutch social safety policy. By bridging the gap between actual effects and assumed effects, this study seeks to make fuller use…

Public engagement is increasingly advocated and applied in the development and implementation of technological innovations. However, initiatives so far are rarely considered effective. There is a need for more methodological rigor and insight into conducive conditions. The authors developed an evaluative framework and assessed accordingly the…