Short abstract

This paper will focus on outlining the challenge for metascience posed by the need to create robust and actionable knowledge about the uptake of social science knowledge to policy.

Long abstract

While, accounting for the societal impact of research is normally associated with funders concerns about accountability or value for money, the uptake of social science research into policy is a more longstanding research effort to grapple with one aspect of research impact. Lindblom and Cohen (1979), Weiss (1979) and more recently, Nelson et al (2023) have dedicated significant attention to developing methods for tracing policy uptake. Although these studies have been focused on the USA, similar, if not identical studies have been done in Europe (LSE 2011), Rosli and Rossi (2016). The outcomes of these studies are varied and the insights on which they converge are often too general in character to do anything other than evidence a need to dig deeper.

Is research on research about the uptake of social science research in policy amenable to large scale studies that could yield robust and generalizable insights? Or is this research area more suitable for an artisanal approach based on single case studies with deep, but locally actionable results? The challenge for metascience in delivering in this narrow but important area is the diversity of policy systems. They vary even within nation states and by virtue of this diversity, the ability to do anything but single case studies on policy uptake is limited. This paper focuses on some potential pathways to find a route to creating meso level studies of knowledge uptake to policy.