Research to Solve Problems
December 6, 2024
On December 6, 2024, the Social Science Research Council convened institutional leaders from the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences, together with leaders of philanthropic organizations and federal science agencies, to share insights about how to foster social and behavioral science that helps policymakers solve pressing social problems. What kinds of partnerships, funding vehicles, and administrative support can sustain a pipeline of knowledge production and transfer leading to public sector innovation? What can we learn, if anything, from the research infrastructure dedicated to supporting knowledge production and transfer for private sector innovation? Are there good examples of research-to-policy pipelines on our campuses?
Conference Speakers
Conference Program
Summary
SSRC President Anna Harvey opened the conference with remarks highlighting the current opportunity for social and behavioral science to improve the delivery of public goods and services. Widespread bipartisan interest in increasing the efficiency of government programs and policies, coupled with new sources of funding for building administrative data infrastructures and conducting program and policy evaluations, have created promising opportunities to translate advances in fundamental research into improved community outcomes. However, capitalizing on these opportunities may require universities to build new infrastructures connecting campus-based researchers with government agencies in need of data and evaluation support, enabling timely researcher access to restricted administrative data, facilitating government fellowship opportunities for students and faculty, and collaborating across universities and geographies to develop shared bodies of knowledge about government efficiency.
Summary
The first panel of the day addressed how universities can better support federal agencies’ research and evaluation work in the wake of the 2018 Evidence-Based Policymaking Act. Panelists from the Office of Management and Budget, the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Education, the US Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Institutes of Health discussed their agencies’ current capacities for program and policy evaluation, as well as their interest in increased partnerships with academic researchers. The pressing need of the science funding agencies to better understand and communicate the economic and societal impacts of federal research investments was a particular focus of the conversation. Panelists and audience members discussed a variety of strategies to increase research collaborations between federal agencies and the university-based research community, including increasing the presence of embedded researchers in federal agencies, and creating more convening opportunities for agencies and researchers to incubate potential research collaborations.
Summary
The second panel of the day centered on how state and local government innovation can be supported by university-based research. The panelists represented a range of university-based policy labs–J-PAL North America at MIT, Crime Lab and Education Lab at University of Chicago, and California Policy Lab at Berkeley–that have successfully partnered with state and local government agencies, as well as the National Science Foundation’s GRANTED program, which is focused on strengthening the administrative infrastructure supporting research translation. The panelists discussed how institutional-level investments in building relationships between campus-based researchers and state and local government agencies, and in shared data infrastructures enabling streamlined researcher access to government administrative data, have facilitated impactful research collaborations that have led to improved public sector performance. Examples include improved access to food security benefits during the pandemic, the expansion of effective high-intensity tutoring programs, and increased enrollment of those eligible for Medicaid benefits.
Summary
Jennifer Doleac (Arnold Ventures) and Anna Harvey (Social Science Research Council) gave an overview of Policy Innovation Days, a new initiative that will fund convenings of researchers and policymakers at CUF institutions, working to strengthen the networks between universities and their state and local government partners. Jennifer Doleac explained that Arnold Ventures’ longer-term goal for this initiative is to generate new proposals for research conducted in partnership with state and local government agencies, facilitating new opportunities for evidence-based policymaking.
Summary
The final panel of the conference featured leaders of university-based research centers that are working in close collaboration with external partners to leverage research to solve problems. The panelists, representing Yale’s Tobin Center, UCSD’s Yankelovich Center, Rice’s Kinder Institute, and USC’s Public Exchange, each discussed how their center has worked with government partners to improve the delivery of public goods and services. For example, research from the Yankelovich Center has led several California municipalities to align their election cycles with federal election years, leading to increases in both turnout and the representativeness of the municipal electorate. The panelists and audience members discussed the importance of communicating to university leadership the potential for fundamental research in the social and behavioral sciences to be translated into improved community outcomes across a range of policy areas, and of encouraging universities to invest in the infrastructure connecting the social and behavioral science research community with public sector partners.
Contact
For more information about the conference or about the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences, please contact Lisa Marshall at marshall@ssrc.org.