Policymakers are often unaware of publicly funded research ¡°sometimes hidden away in the footnotes¡± of the guidance presented to them, a senior civil servant has acknowledged.

However, Mark Holmes, deputy director for impact and innovation infrastructure at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, said that research ¡°leads to better outcomes as well as better policy¡±.

Mr Holmes was among speakers at a seminar organised by the Westminster Higher Education Forum on the social impact of academic research ¨C and how far its different dimensions are captured by the research excellence framework.

The event also heard from David Halpern, director of the Cabinet Office¡¯s Behavioural Insight Team (often called the ¡°Nudge Unit¡±), who explained the process by which research had become more central to policymaking.

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In the past, he said, ¡°academics used to pull together research with policy implications and throw it over the wall into Whitehall¡±. This haphazard process was improved through the creation in 2001 of the Prime Minister¡¯s Strategy Unit, which brought together researchers and civil servants in ¡°an elite unit at the heart of government chucking ideas over the walls into other departments¡±. But often these ideas were too remote from departmental thinking to be easily taken up.

The birth in 2010 of the Behavioural Insight Team, said Dr Halpern, offered a new way of working based on ¡°research within government¡±. As an example, he said that if the government wanted to encourage organ donation, letters could be sent out to people incorporating references to social norms (¡°thousands of people who see this page decide to register¡±) or reciprocity (¡°you may need an organ yourself in the future¡±) ¨C to see what proved most effective in influencing behaviour.

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This amounted to a form of practical scientific method, in Dr Halpern¡¯s view, since ¡°you have to try things out and test them. We don¡¯t know what works in advance.¡±

The seminar, held at the Royal Society on 10 October, also offered academics, university leaders and research ¡°users¡± an opportunity to subject official government views to scrutiny.

Several participants wondered if much valuable work being done by universities slipped through the net of the REF ¡°impact¡± criteria.

Sophie Duncan, deputy director of the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement, suggested that ¡°universities are not good at telling stories about or quantifying their social impact¡± ¨C which, like their direct economic impact, was still underestimated by the public.

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Lianne Deeming, who is director for business excellence at Tata Steel and serves on an REF ¡°user¡± panel, saw a case for more investment in riskier areas of research, ¡°because you often learn from failure¡±.

And Jane Tinkler, research fellow at the London School of Economics, reported on research that indicates that policymakers often valued academics less for specific research projects than for ¡°expertise¡±, ¡°long-term views¡± and ¡°conceptual frameworks¡±, which she was ¡°not sure the REF captures¡±.

matthew.reisz@tsleducation.com