It is essential that public policy-making is informed by high quality research, in order to support the effectiveness of government decision-making. But the full value of humanities and social science (HSS) research has yet to be realised by policy makers, and as a result we are concerned that the government’s efforts to make its policy making more effective will not yield the results that are required. Researchers and policy makers agree that opportunities are being missed, because policy makers are not exploiting all that HSS research offers. Equally, researchers are often unaware of opportunities and approaches to feed their findings into local, regional, national or international policy debates. Both sides would welcome increased opportunities for dialogue and exchange. Our findings echo those of both past and recent government reports and studies, which have found that the Government is not leveraging the academic research base as effectively as it could and should.

This problem is becoming more pressing as the challenges facing society today increasingly require a range of inputs from experts in many disciplines. The Government has particular concerns about the lack of progress in developing the interdepartmental collaborations that are needed to address the policy areas that straddle the boundaries of a number of government departments. Many challenges require a more sophisticated understanding of human behaviour, in order to inform and develop policies that are at the forefront of so many government concerns. HSS disciplines also help policy makers to anticipate, and respond to, future challenges and uncertainties.

We welcome the Government’s commitment to enhance the role of academic research in public policy making. The appointment of departmental Chief Scientific Advisors is an important means of enhancing both cross-departmental engagements and links with academic researchers. We also welcome the Government’s recently published consultation, A Vision for Science and Society, which raises questions about the mechanisms that are needed to improve and reward interactions between academic researchers and policy makers. However, we believe that these efforts need to be strengthened by a series of targeted strategies aimed at addressing the current under-utilisation of HSS research.

In this report we address the following questions:

• What do policy makers need?
• What do the humanities and social sciences offer policy makers?
• What are the challenges of providing better evidence for public policy making?

Our findings and conclusions lead us to a series of recommendations, which focus on the problems from three perspectives:

Knowledge use. What can the Government and policy makers do to exploit all that HSS research has to offer?

Knowledge production. How can we encourage more HSS academic researchers to engage in public policy development?

Co-production. How can we bring the two sides together in a way that facilitates knowledge innovation and knowledge transfer?