Steve Johnson
This blog post is based on the Evidence & Policy article, ‘The policy impact of entrepreneurship research: challenging received wisdom’.
Conventional wisdom across the entrepreneurship research community is that policymakers take little notice of our research findings, preferring to follow the ideological inclinations and electoral ambitions of politicians and to take most notice of those who shout loudest. Policies are therefore not always evidence-based and as a result may not achieve their stated objectives.
This argument has some validity. There are many examples of research that questions the rationale for and impact of existing policies or makes policy recommendations that are subsequently rejected or ignored by policymakers. My recently published article in Evidence and Policy explores entrepreneurship research and policy in the UK over 30 years and finds that, despite appearances to the contrary, there are however grounds for optimism among those of us who believe that research can, does and should have some impact on policy.
I started my academic career in the 1980s, when entrepreneurship research was in its infancy and policymakers were just beginning to take seriously the idea that entrepreneurship might play a positive role in the economy and society. I spent many hours working with colleagues to review the emerging research evidence and we concluded that policies to promote self-employment (such as the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, introduced in 1983) were unlikely to address mass unemployment or to stimulate local economic development. Indeed, such policies risk increasing regional inequalities due to spatial variations in economic and social conditions that stimulate or constrain entrepreneurship.
I still recall my feelings of disappointment and disillusionment when I returned from meetings with policymakers to present our research findings and to try to convince them to adopt our recommendations, only for our words to fall on seemingly deaf ears. A senior colleague suggested at the time that I should be more realistic about the extent to which evidence is used in the policymaking process. However, for the next 30 years of my career I maintained my belief in the potential of research to impact policy, while recognising that the research-policy relationship is much more complex than I first assumed.
Unknown to me at the time, I had adopted a simplistic, linear model of the relationship between evidence and policy. All that was necessary was for academics to disseminate robust, high-quality research, which would be taken on board in the policymaking process. This process should take place almost automatically and ideally over a short period of time. After 30 years of studying the relationship between research and policy, I – along with many others – now recognise that the research-policy interface is highly complex and that evidence can influence policymaking in myriad ways, not always obvious and certainly never purely linear.
Carol Weiss identified several ‘meanings of research utilization’, including ‘enlightenment’ of policymakers through the cumulative impact of many years of research. I applied this model to entrepreneurship research and policy in the UK from 1980 to 2020 and discovered that policies indeed appeared to have changed in response to research findings, with a considerable time lag. For example, the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, which I and colleagues criticised at the time of its introduction, was amended in the early 2000s to build in greater selectivity, designed to support businesses with growth prospects. Similarly, UK entrepreneurship policy in the 2000s became more spatially targeted than it was in the 1980s. These policy changes were partly a result of shifts in government priorities, but they also reflect increasing recognition of the quality of entrepreneurship research and its value to policymaking.
The main contribution of the article is to highlight that the mechanisms through which entrepreneurship research influences policy are complex and largely hidden from view, leading to understatement of the policy impact of research. There have been positive developments in research-policy interaction, such as the establishment of the UK Enterprise Research Centre, and future studies should investigate further the research-policy nexus and promote the case for evidence-based policymaking.
Reference
Weiss, C.H. (1979). The Many Meanings of Research Utilization. Public Administration Review 39 (5): 426–31. https://doi.org/10.2307/3109916.
Steve Johnson is Professor of Enterprise and Research Director at Sheffield Business School, Sheffield Hallam University, UK. He is an applied researcher with an interest in entrepreneurship, skills and local economic development. He has evaluated numerous policies and initiatives and he has published on the relationship between business school research, practice and policy, including:
Johnson, S. and Orr, K. (2020). What is business school research for? Academic and stakeholder perspectives, politics and relationality. Studies in Higher Education.
Email: steve.johnson@shu.ac.uk. Twitter: @webfoot_one
Image credit: Photo by Vicky Yu on Unsplash
Read the original research in Evidence & Policy:
Johnson, S. (2022). The policy impact of entrepreneurship research: challenging received wisdom. Evidence & Policy, 10.1332/174426422X16596963542147.
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