If research is to influence policy then simply undertaking the research may not be sufficient. Some investment will be required in transmitting knowledge as well as in perfecting it. As Laurec (1989, p. 12) argues "raffiner année après année les conclusions, en déplorant rituellement qu'elles ne soient pas utilisées traduit un manque de réflexion sir le rôle de la recherche et son insertion dans le système social et économique" (to refine conclusions year after year whilst ritually deploring the fact that they are not used is indicative of a lack of thought about the role of research and its position in the social and economic system).
One problem facing fisheries researchers, at least under the institutional arrangements currently common in fisheries, is that research frequently highlights the need to limit production and make difficult political choices between users. Such research is not likely to be very welcome politically, especially because increases in production are so often used as a measure of the success of fishery policy. There is a need, where possible, to present research results in a politically-acceptable manner, including research on how to implement essential, but potentially unpopular, policies in ways that do not amount to political suicide. There is also a need for research to contribute to changing society's views as to the form in which benefits are derived from fisheries. If the success indicator can be changed from output to value then there is no reason why it cannot increase monotonically without endangering the resource base.
Tabor and Faber (1998) consider in detail the problem of moving from research to policy change. Drawing on a number of case studies, they present some general conclusions. Experience in Ghana shows that "involving policy makers in setting the research agenda for Governmental research bodies has proven to be especially effective in feeding policy reform. Bringing research results to the policy makers (rather than bringing policy makers to research funding presentations), through seminars and discussions tailormade for the policy makers, has also proven effective" (Chapter 1, p. 3 of internet version). This conclusion reinforces the point made earlier concerning the need for a research prioritisation process to be undertaken at the appropriate points in the policy/research system.
Agricultural research experience in Kenya is also illuminating. The Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) produces policy briefs, which are distillations of research results for the attention of policy makers. Although supportive of this approach, Tabor and Faber (1998, Chapter 1, p. 3) advocate that it may need to be reinforced with "policy advocacy efforts". However, this seems a dangerous course for researchers to follow. It seems preferable to follow the Ghanaian strategy if possible. Identifying researchers too closely with policy has a number of potentially adverse consequences for the future, particularly concerning the perceived impartiality (or not) of research. There is also a clear risk that researchers will be identified with policy failures which have nothing to do with research. (In fact a little later Tabor and Faber give the example of the Philippines where researchers are now being sued when their results "adversely effect (sic) corporate interests" (ibid, p. 4)). Researchers also have only a partial view of the policy problem. It is the role of the Government to integrate wider considerations into policy development.
From the various case-studies, Tabor and Faber attempt to formulate some key recommendations for developing an effective interface between research and policy change. This is clearly a difficult problem and much more work will be required. Successful solutions will depend mainly on local conditions so it is not surprising that drawing out general principles is a tricky process. However, only some of their recommendations relate specifically to the interface. Others are more general applying either to research or to its management. Rather than presenting the recommendations in the same way as Tabor and Faber, the section below attempts to organise them in terms of their focus.
Interface
The following recommendations relate specifically to the idea of an interface between research and policy change. The first group relate to the research system itself whereas the second relate to the policymaking users of research results.
Research quality
Top of the list of recommendations put forward by Tabor and Faber is the need for research quality.
Although this is a crucial point, it clearly does not relate specifically or even mainly to the interface problem.
Research management
A number of recommendations seem to relate more to the way in which research is managed than to the interface itself.
For this recommendation to work, a number of things are required of the way in which research is organised. First, the priority-setting process and/or the research community have to predict future problems because it will usually be too late to do much research once the problem has reached a level where it has a devastating impact. Second, there needs to be some assessment of the potential payoff to research. Urgent and devastating problems do not necessarily have a high research payoff even if they attract the most attention from policy-makers. Third, if there are a series of urgent problems some mechanism will be required to prioritise them and choose between them if research funds are limited. Fourth, the idea has overtones of research fire-fighting. It may be impossible for research to avoid some of this but it should not dictate the whole agenda.
These two recommendations relate to the general issue of motivation and incentives facing researchers (see section 8 below). Of themselves they do nothing to put into place an interface between research and policy, although they are likely to increase researcher demands for such an interface.
Once again the recommendation is worthy but does not seem to relate.specifically to the interface idea. It has often been said that the role of research is to prepare for the next crisis since ,it is only in times of crisis that real progress can be made, especially in matters of institutional reform where a strong status quo often has to be overcome. As John F Kennedy pointed out (April 12, 1959), "when written in Chinese, the word `crisis' is composed of two characters - one represents danger the other represents opportunity."
This is a very difficult issue. The rationale underlying such a recommendation is easy to understand. However, if the interface between research and policy comes to depend on legal provisions such as this then urgent attention would have to be paid to the whole process.
One general comment is that these recommendations seem to place much of the onus on the research community. However, given that public funds are being spent on research, more might be expected of the policy-making process itself to move towards research.
One way to do this would be to establish what might be called Research Liaison Units. Probably it would be best to locate these in the relevant ministries. They would have a number of functions. Most importantly, they would prepare, in collaboration with research institutes, policy briefs as "translations" of research results. They would also house the body responsible for research prioritisation. The membership of these Units should be given careful thought. The idea of basing them in ministries would be to try to increase their potential policy impact and hence the policy impact of research. At the same time, they should not be seen as purely ministerial bodies but should involve representatives of different stakeholders, particularly when researchable problems must be identified.
The establishment of such units may help to resolve the problem that too frequently policy questions are simply pushed down the line to the research centre for "advice". This problem is far from affecting only developing countries but appears to be endemic wherever there exists a sectoral nationally-funded research institute which depends on the Fisheries Ministry.
If a Research Liaison Unit is established, it needs to have a sufficiently high profile so that researchers operating outside of the sectoral research institutes and with an interest in seeing their research results applied to policy feel motivated to communicate their results to the Unit. In other words, the Unit should provide the principal entry point to the policy process. This would place the Unit in an important and potentially powerful position so careful attention would need to be paid to its management: to whom does it report and how is its performance to be assessed and monitored?
Consideration could be given also to the use of a contractual relationship between this unit and research deliverers, including centrally-funded institutions. Some decisions will have to be taken about the level of base-funding that should be given to a centrally-funded institute, with contractual funding making up the rest. There is no reason why all research should be put through the central research institute; it is unrealistic to expect it to have all the necessary expertise. Use should be made of Universities etc., locally and also of foreign institutes. The management of research undertaken by foreigners will require careful consideration, especially concerning data archives, and the ministry unit could also be responsible for this.
Special attention may have to be paid to the relationship between the ministry and public sector research institutes. Research needs to anticipate medium to long term problems but it is difficult to do this if the ministry continuously uses public sector research institutes for short-term technical advice because its own technical divisions are underfunded. It might be argued that short-term advice is one output of previous medium-to-long-term research plans but clearly if the quantity of advice solicited becomes too great, short term considerations come to swamp the medium to long term. Moreover, there is a tendency to assign the best personnel to dealing with these short-term problems. There is no simple solution to this problem since both the ministry and its research institutes are subject to short-term pressures. However, seeking the funding of public-sector research institutes by the private sector could easily make matters worse since the questions facing the private sector are likely to be dominated by short-term considerations, especially in overexploited fisheries. An obvious way forward in theory is to set up a unit designed specifically to deal with issues of diffusion of research results and advice, a kind of after-sales centre. The problem in practice is whether the Institute can effectively limit the size of this function.
If it is not possible to create a Research Liaison Unit within the Ministry, then the onus will (continue to) be placed on the research side, especially public sector research institutes. In this case, the institutes will have to ensure that they have the necessary capacity to develop a dialogue between research and policy.
