On Tuesday, 17 June 2025, the Wales Centre for Public Policy (WCPP) hosted an online event to explore how local decision-makers in the United Kingdom access and use evidence, and how they can engage more effectively with knowledge brokers and academics.
Bringing together speakers from local and combined authorities, the event focused on sharing the perspectives of those who use evidence in their day-to-day work at the local level, as well as identifying best practice for those seeking to improve the impact of evidence and research in local decision-making. These insights build on ongoing work that the WCPP have been undertaking to examine the impact of the What Works Network and other organisations in the wider field of evidence and policy.
These were our key takeaways from the event.
1) Different kinds of evidence can support local decision-making
Access to robust, timely evidence is now widely understood to be crucial to good policymaking, as demonstrated by the increasing engagement between university researchers and policymakers across the United Kingdom over recent years. However, it was emphasised throughout the event that there is no single, authoritative source of evidence. Rather, there are multiple kinds of evidence that can help to inform policymaking processes in impactful ways. These include:
- Scientific evidence, for example the findings from an academic research project that can help shape the design and delivery of local services.
- Contextual evidence, for example different forms of local organisational data that can tell us how successful past interventions have been, how resources could be used more effectively, or what skills may be available across the local workforce.
- Experiential evidence, for example particular forms of professional or practitioner knowledge identified within organisations, or data that helps to reveal the perspectives of local communities and public service users.
Knowledge brokers – such as university-based research centres – have an important role in helping to bring these different forms of evidence together in ways that can be most impactful for policymaking processes.
2) There are significant barriers that prevent local policymakers from accessing and using evidence effectively
Despite an acknowledgement that evidence is a crucial input to good policymaking, there is also an awareness that multiple barriers currently prevent many local policymakers from making the most of available evidence.
First and foremost, there are often misalignments between the expectations of evidence producers and the potential users of that evidence. Policymakers are typically required to work to extremely short timeframes, that rarely match the longer project lifecycles that are common in academic research. Likewise, academic outputs are not always easy for local government officers to access or digest at speed; meaning they are unlikely to land well with potential users. Nor is this evidence typically translated in a way that directly addresses the specific needs or priorities of a particular local context.
However, the culture within some local government organisations can also present a further barrier to utilising evidence effectively. Policy silos within organisations can mean that valuable data is rarely shared between different teams, while some local government officers can adopt a nervous or adversarial attitude wherever evidence raises issues that are considered politically sensitive. It was highlighted that this can often be the case where evidence is drawn from communities, and risks revealing the limited capacity of policymakers to respond to the identified needs and priorities of local people.
3) It is important for researchers to appreciate the particular contexts that local policymakers operate in
Overcoming these barriers requires researchers to better understand the specific needs and challenges that potential policy partners may be facing, and the contextual constraints they are operating within.
For example, it was highlighted that ongoing processes of devolution across the country are creating an increasingly complex governance landscape for policymakers to navigate; while the ongoing impacts of austerity are serving to increase the level of demand on public services at a time when resources within local government are severely constrained. These pressures are regularly exacerbated further by the need to respond at short notice to the demands of central government. Under such conditions, the need to deliver can leave research and evaluation as something of an afterthought within the policy process.
This context means that, in order to maximise their potential for impact, researchers need to increasingly appreciate the messiness of the policymaking process. This process is far from linear, and different forms of evidence are likely to be useful for different actors at different stages along the way. It is incumbent upon researchers to understand where and when they can engage with policymakers in order to achieve impact.
4) Local government organisations also need to get better at articulating their research needs
Just as it is important for researchers to better understand the needs of local government partners, it is also important for organisations to more clearly articulate these needs to researchers.
In the first instance, local government organisations should work proactively with researchers to explain what evidence is needed and how this can be shared in ways that are most user-friendly. For example, West Midlands Combined Authority has recently outlined its Areas of Research Interest (ARIs) in order to raise awareness of local research priorities and highlight the particular topics where external support is required to fill evidence gaps.
However, in order to communicate their needs more effectively, organisations may first need to establish a shared culture towards evidence internally; building up data literacy among staff and challenging unrealistic expectations about the role that evidence can (and should) play within the policymaking process. Doing so can help make sure that local government officers can more confidently identify their particular evidence needs and more effectively communicate these with research partners.
5) Building long-term relationships can support greater impact for evidence and research
Bridging these gaps in understanding between the users and producers of evidence requires the development of long-term, high-quality relationships between researchers and local policymakers. This means moving away from a ‘dash and run’ approach to academic policy engagement, where research projects are often short-lived and not directly addressed to the specific needs of policymakers.
Instead, embedding knowledge brokers within local government can help to support the development of more open and honest relationships between partners, as well as a better understanding of the pressures that each are working under. Such collaborations help to provide greater clarity over the kinds of questions that policymakers need to be answered. Over time, they can also help to build greater organisational buy-in for more extensive collaboration with research partners.
Improving the use of evidence in local policymaking takes effort on all sides. It means rethinking how evidence is produced, communicated, and applied — and building the relationships needed to make that happen. The WCPP event helped to outline the practical steps required to more effectively integrate research with real-world decision-making, and highlighted the mutual benefits that such collaboration could offer.
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