School research plan 2023 to 2026

Objective 3: Supporting independent research

Scotland's universities have an international reputation for excellent research that delivers economic and social benefits for both Scotland and the wider world. The Scottish Government is the largest single source of university research funding in Scotland, with funding allocated through the Scottish Funding Council. The value of university led research for education policymaking is clear, with researchers providing robust subject and methodological expertise as well as a sound understanding of the many factors that shape the educational outcomes of Scotland’s children and young people.

Knowledge exchange

The OECD’s^[1] 2015 report on improving schools in Scotland recommended that

education research could be strengthened with greater collaboration between researchers, policy-makers and practitioners and that decision making would benefit from the input of evidence from independent researchers.

Since 2017, we have been working to identify and improve knowledge exchange opportunities between analysts and users of research across government, academia and educational practice. We define knowledge exchange as a process that brings together Scottish Government analysts and policy officials with other public bodies responsible for delivering education, university researchers, and educational practitioners to exchange evidence and share ideas and skills. It is a process through which external research, perspectives and expertise can be brought into the policy making process and government research and data can be shared, with the aim to translate knowledge into impact.

We want to ensure that decisions about education policy are informed by the best available evidence on Scottish education. This necessitates the identification, appraisal and use of a wide range of evidence sources. Our primary sources of evidence are Scottish government statistics and social research. However, we also draw on evidence produced by other public bodies, such as local authorities and executive agencies, UK and international evidence, and independent research led by universities.

We want to further embed the use of independent research in the policy making process. Effective communication between university researchers and policymakers plays an important role in the uptake of academic research evidence and widening the impact of university research. There are a number of challenges, however, in enabling policymakers to effectively engage with academic research. This includes: outputs tailored to different audiences, shortage of open access research, and few channels for knowledge exchange between governments and universities.

Our Academic Reference Group has gone some way to establishing improved lines of communication between education researchers and policy officials. In 2022, we launched the ‘Education Research Seminar Series’- a monthly online seminar series which offers policymakers an opportunity to hear from and engage with university researchers. We will continue to develop new channels for knowledge exchange in the coming years. We will work with the Academic Reference Group to identify new and emerging education research and explore ways in which we can support policy officials to better use independent research when developing and evaluating education policy.

We will also ensure that the research published by the Scottish Government is shared, in an accessible format, with those who can use, learn from and/or implement the findings. This includes the primary users of our research – policy officials and Scottish Ministers – and other research users such as teachers and other education practitioners, public bodies, and independent researchers.

Increasing opportunities for doctoral and early career researchers

We recognise the importance of supporting doctoral and early career education researchers to engage with government. These researchers represent new talent, skills and ideas, and are often more diverse in terms of socio-economic background, gender, and ethnicity. However, our engagement with university researchers, is typically with more established or senior reearchers. This means that early career researchers, who represent the future of education research and university leadership, have few opportunities to share their research with the government.

To better support early career researchers to maximise the impact of their research, we will open up membership of the Academic Reference Group to early career researchers and continue to provide paid internships for doctoral reseachers via the Scottish Graduate School of Social Sciences (SGSSS) internship scheme.