March 19, 2024
As part of the Belgian Presidency of the European Union, stakeholders came together last month to discuss ‘Evidence-informed education, policy and practice’.
Given the complex processes involved in bridging research, policy and practice, and the ever-present debates on what counts as ‘useful evidence; in education, it is not surprising that the discussions of this conference raised as many questions as possible solutions.
Just as our BRiDGE project considers and attempts to improve the connections between stakeholders, the notion of ‘boundaries’ was an ongoing theme. The concept of boundary may be understood as a meeting point of different areas – including different sectors -- but it might also imply some limits or a barrier.
Boundary workers
Speakers frequently referred to the role and status of boundary workers. They used this term to mean organisations and individuals who have network contacts and a work mandate to facilitate dialogue and exchange of knowledge between practitioners, researchers and policymakers. The European Commission’s own Joint Research Centre acknowledge the fragmentation of actors in systems and have committed to a two-year project to explore approaches.
The fact that there are people who are considered as boundary workers might be reassuring to education professionals, in that they provide an easy solution to a system’s communication problems. There is someone to translate and carry the messages across sectors. However, the role of boundary workers as impartial and rational decision-makers - or promoters - of different approaches to education needs deeper critical reflection.
In her keynote, Professor Annette Boaz (King’sCollege, London) observed that there is a heavy reliance on a linear approach:for example, a researcher hands an outcomes document to a policy maker and hopes for impact. The alternatives are less popular but not less effective: a relational approach of interaction and dialogue, and, even less popular, a systemic approach where knowledge-brokering is embedded in processes and roles. She sees boundary workers as a distinct group of stakeholders, even though this does not seem to be recognised as a professional role choice with its own career path to and from it. (See Rycroft-Smith 2022[i]for a discussion of knowledge-brokering in an education context).
In the OECD’s own 2021 survey on the impact of educational research, the responses suggest that limited or conflicting time and lacking mechanisms to use research are more of a barrier than a lack of will or competence, particularly on the side of policymakers. Even civil society organisations, in their prime intermediary role, have limited capacity for their own research. Andreas Schleicher (Director for the Directorate of Education and Skills, OECD) lamented the positioning of educators as more research ‘objects;, observing them and gathering their opinions, rather than active ‘subjects’. In a separate conference session on fostering partnerships, Boaz asked how systems and the research community can properly reward stakeholder engagement and co-operation, rather than bleeding dry the willing volunteers.
Boundary objects
Along with initiatives such as fellowships and training programmes, boundary objects can be used by boundary workers but these workers also need support to make sure that the objects are useful. Examples of objects include documents, graphics, defined policy priorities (e.g. in an open call for papers), and even metaphors.
The Commission’s own Learning Lab on Investing in Quality Education and Training is one example and takes a similar approach to our BRiDGE project by combining a professional learning community with structured professional learning (courses). The Commission’s Joint Research Centre Staff Working Document on Science for Policy in the Member States and Competence Framework ‘Science for Policy’ for researchers are additional examples of boundary objects. The framework forms a core part of our own BRiDGE project design for Early Career Researchers and one of the project outcomes will be to reflect on how this object, or tool, functions in practice.
At the conference, Dirk van Damme (Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, OECD) shared his belief that boundary working is less of a concern. To him the poor quality of research is a serious issue,and there are not enough meta-analyses and large samples available to inform decision-making. He conceded that it is difficult to have influence and to convincingly generalise with surveys and interviews, and with various qualitative methods popular in educational research, because of the gold standard of Randomised Control Trials.
Boundary spaces
Andreas Schleicher considered the role of the boundary worker as distinct from the knowledge being exchanged: “A good knowledge broker will tell you about the robustness of the evidence – how much you can trust.”On the other hand, he accepted that not all boundary workers are politically neutral, and Boaz agreeing with the example of some government Think Tanks being aligned with or even part of a political party.
The complex landscape of different goals, ambitions and political views is certainly recognised in literature that calls for a consideration of the boundary space. As Jungcurt (2013) states, “the boundary is thus a contested space around which scientists and policy makers compete for cognitive authority over the interpretation of indeterminate facts.”[ii]
As our BRiDGE project on the research-policy-practice knowledge triangle moves forward, it will be important for us as partners to consider boundary workers, objects, and spaces in our community capacity-building.
The conference ‘Evidence-informed education, policy and practice’ was held in Brussels on 6-7 February, with many other participants following the livestream. Further information is available on the conference webpage.
[i]Rycroft-Smith, L. (2022). Knowledge brokering to bridge the research-practice gap in education: Where are we now? Review of Education, 10, e33 41. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3341 and video abstract https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUjBDID3n1Y
[ii] Jungcurt, S. (2013). Taking Boundary Work Seriously: Towards a Systemic Approach to the Analysis of Interactions Between Knowledge Production and Decision-Making on Sustainable Development.In: Meuleman, L. (eds) Transgovernance. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28009-2_7
