Researcher Development Initiative (RDI), 2005 - 2010

01/01/06 - 30/09/08

 

The ESRC UK Centre for Evidence Based Policy & Practice was established in 2000 to support, facilitate and channel the growing interest in a more evidence-informed approach to policy and practice. The Centre has run a series of training events since that date, providing an opportunity for researchers to:

 

• develop the necessary skills for conducting research that transfers into policy and practice
• gain a better understanding of the research-policy linkage and so communicate their outputs more effectively
• master the appropriate techniques and resources for identifying, accessing and assessing the existing research base in a wide range of fields.

Relocated to King's College London, the Centre’s plan for work within the ESRC Research Development Initiative was to build on this experience in order to meet the over-riding objective of making research relevant to users.

Accordingly, the programme had four strands:

 

• Understanding the research/policy/practice relationship
• Reviewing existing research
• Synthesising diverse research
• Communicating research to practitioners.

 

In each of these strands the Centre provided an introductory 3-day course and a number of one day advanced workshops. Additionally there was a 5-day postgraduate residential school in the first strand, continuing the successful experience of previous summer schools. During the second year of the programme web-based interactive training resources were developed which were made available on the Centre's Evidence Network website (www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/sspp/interdisciplinary/evidence/).

 

Principal Investigator: Professor Charlotte Humphrey, King’s College London

Contact Details

Professor Charlotte Humphrey, 
King’s College London

Email: charlotte.humphrey
@kcl.ac.uk
Tel: 020 7848 3646