Matthew Flinders
This blog post is based on the Evidence & Policy article, ‘Entrepreneurial thinking: the politics and practice of policy impact’.
In a recent article in Evidence and Policy Steve Johnson suggests that entrepreneurship research may have had far more impact on society than it is generally credited with. In making this point Johnson stimulates a debate not just about the past, present and future of entrepreneurship research but about the science-society nexus more generally. In a commentary in Evidence and Policy I responded to Johnson’s argument through a focus on evidential standards and criticality.
When stripped down to its core thesis, Johnson’s argument is that entrepreneurship research may have had a number of non-academic and broadly positive impacts on society. The slight problem is that this claim relies upon enlightenment arguments about affecting public debate and shaping ideas that are incredibly hard to demonstrate or measure in a tangible manner. There are, of course, some academic studies that can claim and prove that they have shaped public discourse and affected public policy – the recent insights of behavioural economics and ‘nudge theory’ provide a good example – but such examples tend to be rare.
With this in mind entrepreneurship research, like all disciplines and fields, has simply got to improve the evidential standards that it can offer as to why it should receive public funding. In the twenty-first century intellectual claims to fulfilling some sort of ‘enlightenment’ role are not on their own going to be accepted by policymakers, funders or even the public as providing a justifiable basis for funding. Johnson seems to think that a high and unassailable wall exists between researchers and policymakers whereas in reality the nexus between research and policy tends to be far more fluid. Although not easy, it is possible for policy papers, reports and other ‘grey’ publications to cite academic studies; it is possible to get policymakers and politicians to mention research projects in their speeches, it is possible to have research projects mentioned and discussed in legislative scrutiny committees in ways that contribute to the gradual building of a strong and robust set of impact claims.
But what all of this depends upon is the existence of high-trust low-cost relationships between researchers and policymakers, a point that raises the issue of criticality.
There is, however, a major risk that Johnson overlooks and which has generally not received the discussion and debate it deserves within academe – the risk of co-option. Academics play a role in society through processes of both knowledge-creation and knowledge-mobilisation. Both elements should embrace a high degree of criticality and challenge which, in turn, are key elements of any healthy research, development and innovation ecosystem. The emergent risk vis-à-vis policy impact and academic life emerges out of the confluence of two pressures. The first being a clear shift within the research funding landscape towards a form of solution-orientated scholarship which is linked to politically-defined societal challenges and is increasingly leaning towards a preference for co-produced and co-designed methods and approaches; the second is the related pressure on academics to demonstrate the societal value, public benefit or policy relevance of their research. The risk in this context is that academics, particularly early career researchers who find themselves in precarious patterns of employment, might find it hard to resist the temptation to engage in a Faustian bargain.
The ‘bargain’ very crudely put would see the academics trade a degree of intellectual independence and criticality as the price they pay for creating the research-user partnerships needed to secure external research funding (and, through this, secure tenure or promotion). The risk of co-option is therefore a very real concern. How entrepreneurial research might play a role in addressing this risk is a debate I hope to see taken forward.
Matthew Finders is Professor of Politics and Director of the Sir Bernard Crick Centre for the Public Understanding of Politics at the University of Sheffield. Twitter: @PoliticalSpike
Image credit: Photo by Katja Ritvanen on Unsplash
Read the original research in Evidence & Policy:
Flinders, M. (2022). Entrepreneurial thinking: the politics and practice of policy impact. Evidence & Policy, DOI: 10.1332/174426421X16637656674318.
Johnson, S. (2022). The policy impact of entrepreneurship research: challenging received wisdom. Evidence & Policy, DOI: 10.1332/174426422X16596963542147.
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