What is policy research? What is its goal?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Policy research is a process rather than a method: “a process that attempts to support and persuade actors by providing them with well-reasoned, evidence-based, and responsible recommendations for decision making and action” (Majchrzak & Markus, 2014). Because policy research often draws on the findings of evaluation research projects and involves working for a client as is the case in evaluation research, policy researchers confront many of the same challenges as do evaluation researchers. Because policy researchers must summarize and weigh evidence from a wide range of sources, they need to be familiar with each of the methods presented in this book.
The goal of policy research is to inform those who make policy about the possible alternative courses of action in response to some identified problem, their strengths and weaknesses, and their likely positive and negative effects. Reviewing the available evidence may lead the policy researcher to conclude that enough is known about the issues to develop recommendations without further research, but it is more likely that additional research will be needed using primary or secondary sources. Policies that have been evaluated with a methodologically rigorous design and have been proven effective are sometimes called evidence-based policies.
Policy research is a process in which research results are used to provide policy actors with recommendations for action that are based on empirical evidence and careful reasoning.
Evidence-based policy is a policy that has been evaluated with a methodologically rigorous design and has been proven to be effective.