217 General Discussion publication. While the decision not to publish the work did not impact its objective and societal impact, it made it invisible for the purpose of this thesis. Better bridging research and policy requires adapting each field’s outputs´ to one another or at least recognising their respective value in the alternative world. Evidence generation in the research and policy worlds The projects described above aimed at closely collaborating with policy-makers based on an Academic environment. They introduced me to the differences between the two worlds, which I naturally wanted to explore further. To do so, I created the opportunity to complement my PhD experience with an internship in an international policy organisation, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Being embedded in a policy environment for 5 months was pivotal to complementing my understanding of the differences between research and policy work and the ability to move between and bridge both. As a clarification, it might be important to mention that the OECD does not have any mandate in policy-making, rather than in generating evidence and recommendations to be used by countries worldwide. Below, I outline some reflections about the significant differences between the generation of evidence in each environment. A first difference that maximises the likelihood of evidence being used in decisionmaking is the platform directly linking OECD policy work to the decision-making centres of country governments. While this model is quite particular to the Organization and not easily replicable – it consists of dedicated structures and resources (counsellors, ambassadors, and Committees) that conduct policy dialogue at technical and political levels – it reinforces the relevance of collaborative platforms where both parties are accountable for delivering and working together. Most platforms involving Academia are grant consortiums or structures such as the Dutch academic workplaces. These often rely on researchers’ efforts to reach out to policymakers, sometimes due to incentives provided by funding opportunities. However, effective research uptake requires policymaking accountability also, more than ad-hoc willingness or voluntary collaborations. A second significant difference relates to the pace at which the two environments move. While the OECD engages in long-term projects (usually cycles of 2 years, with some data collection efforts ongoing for much longer), the working mode consists of a much fasterpaced environment in which progress and project decisions can be achieved in a day or speeches/intervention prepared in a couple of hours. This rhythm and the pragmatism needed to work in this way are mostly lacking in Academia, leaving policy-makers with the impression that academic work cannot fulfil their immediate needs. The third and most prominent difference relies on the objectives of the work is conducted. While at the OECD, I have often encountered projects in which the methods and data used would be exactly the same as those in Academic research. The significant difference was how the project objective would shape the decisions and the output format. Writing a piece to be reviewed by peers could not be more different than doing so to inform 7
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