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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - K4U (Knowledge For Use [K4U]: Making the Most of Social Science to Build Better Policies)

Teaser

RESEARCH QUESTIONThe project K4U aims to construct a radically new picture of how to use social science to build better social policies and to make better policy decisions. The project focuses on knowledge production: encouraging high quality studies and vetting them.Little...

Summary

RESEARCH QUESTION
The project K4U aims to construct a radically new picture of how to use social science to build better social policies and to make better policy decisions.
The project focuses on knowledge production: encouraging high quality studies and vetting them.
Little attention goes to knowledge use: how is social science knowledge to be used in policy design and deliberation.

IMPORTANT FOR SOCIETY
The project will show how to use research for better social policies with better outcomes, as committed by UE with Horizon 2020 societal challenges policy.
K4U will provide not just a theoretical but a practical understanding for policy makers in having respect of the social science research results during their activity.
The project aims also to create a new kind of knowledge, in order to be better understood by policy makers and to be combined with other competencies or elements considered for policy making.
The research team in the academic network involved is interdisciplinary for guarantee a good approach to a practice-oriented philosophy, which needs to be done in cooperation with other disciplines, especially where abstract philosophical positions are to be judged by what they amount to in the concrete.

OVERALL OBJECTIVES
K4U’s overall objectives are to develop in tandem methods:
• for using social science to build better social policies
• and for making better decisions about what to do,
and with this exemplary study,
• to provide a model for the philosophy of science in practice,
• to initiate the philosophy of social technology,
• and to provide breakthroughs in philosophy of science on questions involving causality, evidence, objectivity and values in science, where ‘better social policy decisions’ means decisions in which policy outcomes are more effective and more reliably predictable and competing values and points of view are respected in policy choice and implementation.

Work performed

1.1.1 Overview

K4U is progressing well at mid-point, with a fully mobilised and engaged team working hard on the range of complex and intersecting themes outlined in the Description of the action. The project is generating outputs, some of which are high-profile, and making external impact. We have been driving forward and continue to push on a number of sub-projects which are taking K4U research outputs into the realms of practitioner communities in diverse areas such as: child protection, social work, international development, a UK “What Works” centre and the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD). The majority of the six K4U case studies are well underway resulting in a considerable flow of philosophical ideas between each case study and the wider project.
In terms of the ‘Points of Attack’ outlined in the Description of the action, we have made good headway in work around ‘assembling policy proposals’ and ‘collecting the right evidence’; some progress around ‘putting together what we know’ and ‘deliberating what to do’; and less progress, and therefore still need to push on with: ‘knowing if you are successful’ and ‘ensuring sustainability’.

As planned, in Year 1, within the Building Social Policies Work Stream (WS1), we engaged with The Durham Institute of Advanced Studies’ theme on evidence, with K4U team members participating in particular in the sub-themes: ‘Evidence Synthesis by Building a Case’; ‘Talking Therapies: Evidence and Evaluation’; and ‘Cutting-edge Computation and Scientific Evidence’. We also made good progress on ‘warrant for singular causal claims’. Work on ‘frameworks for synthesis by building a case’ was more difficult than foreseen and is lagging behind as a result.

In Year 2 the Deliberating Policy Work Stream (WS2) was launched as planned and a very great deal work has been done on ‘understanding the underlying structure’ (about which we will say more later). Progress has also been made on the ‘role of theory’, especially in Cartwright’s work with Angus Deaton (see, for instance, Deaton and Cartwright, ‘Understanding and Misunderstanding Randomized Controlled Trials’ – CHESS Working Paper 2016-05 and 2017 article in Social Science& Medicine, listed in publications section of this report) and her work in the UK Department for International Development’s Centre of Excellence for Development Impact and Learning (CEDIL). ‘Narratives’, however, have not proved to be nearly as useful a tool as we had expected so they have played little role in helping us progress. (We note that Mary Morgan has a big project funded by you specifically devoted to narratives so we will watch for ideas from that project to see if they can help us with ours.) Work on ‘conceptions of objectivity’ was moved forward in the project and good progress is being made. The biannual Philosophy of Science Association Meeting (dissemination/outputs list 3 Nov 2016) was used to effect, again as planned.
As previously reported, commencement of work on Case Study 6 (Climate Services) was delayed due to maternity leave, and Case Study 1 (Mental Health) was slightly delayed due to difficulties in agreeing the scope of K4U engagement with the Greater Manchester project team but is now on track. The studentships and other case studies are going, or are about to go, ahead in accordance with the original schedule. The compilation of a ‘pamphlet-style’ advice guide, planned for Year 5, was brought forward, and completed, in part by the desire to publish Improving Child Safety (publications list, 2017) before the new What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care (SCIE) was launched in hopes of K4U ideas influencing it.
In the remainder of this section we provide details on the progress for each of the main anticipated outcomes, research themes and emerging concepts of the project as well as reporting on progress within the two work streams and each of the six case

Final results

The project is generally on track and the expected results are largely in line with original expectations.

Website & more info

More info: https://www.dur.ac.uk/k4u/.