SELECTED ISSUES FROM IDRC-ISST ROUNDTABLES ON POLICY RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT AND POLICY RESEARCH ORGANIZATIONS ( GALLE, SRI LANKA JAN 21; PUDUCHERRY, INDIA, JAN 24-5; KATHMANDU, MARCH 5-6 ) Ratna M. Sudarshan, Director, Institute of Social Studies Trust, New Delhi

Themes Overall message: strengthening the policy influence of good policy research in South Asia requires a long term perspective  Creating a conducive environment  Raising the quality of social science/ development research  Addressing the management needs of research organisations  Communicating for policy influence

Political Context  Impact of coalition politics, and fragile policy consensus, on the demand from government for policy research - India  Challenge of militancy and extreme conflict - Pakistan  Identity and exclusion - Nepal  How much space for constructive criticism or dissent – Sri Lanka  Policy research can be 'technical and managerial‘, 'problem solving mode';  Or strategic research - strengthening may be much more needed at this level

Quality of Research  Public Domain  Consultancies  Work of Commissions and Committees  Unpublished reports Peer review, contribution to public debate, not possible without placing in the public domain

Quality and Research Planning  Project dependence restricts ability to plan strategically  Good policy research needs to build on basic research, ‘policy irrelevant’ research, but funding does not always permit the latter  Linked to human resource planning

Research Quality  Universities and research organisations:  Universities place emphasis on teaching  Fresh graduates need orientation for research  Think Tanks have to take on tasks of training/ teaching, capacity building; the pre-conditions for good policy research

Management Needs of Research Organisations  Staffing concerns  Recruitment and retention  Compensation and consulting  Contract and core staff  Overseas educated nationals  Individual vs institution

Funding  Limited government funding  Funding not available for institution building – only projects  Research agendas may be driven by donors  Competitive bidding can discourage climate of academic sharing and debate, encourage focus on good packaging over content

Other issues  Quality  Generally accepted norms for validation for policy research needed  Culture of Evaluation needs to be encouraged within institutions  Need for multi disciplinary work  Role of Boards

Communicating for Policy Influence  No single route, very many ways  Role of commissions and committees important  Country differences in policy making process  Networking can sometimes help  How measure impact