The pre-conference tutorials for the 7th of the CPRsouth conferences just started, here in Port Louis, Mauritius. I am teaching a unit tomorrow on research-to-policy. The slides are here.
It is not easy for a capacity-building enterprise such as CPRsouth to provide evidence of efficacy in terms of taking research to policy. By definition, capacity building is a long game involving relatively young people (the average age of paper presenters is 34 years; of young scholars is 29). Changing policy requires the ability to publish influential op-eds, get meetings with decision makers and so on. How realistic is it to expect this of our participants?
The slideset, the second half giving data on CPRsouth, provides evidence that our members are active in providing inputs to policy processes in their countries; that their papers are being downloaded from SSRN is significant volume and that they are beginning to form an intellectual community. These are important indicators that the foundation is being built. In terms of actual policy outcomes, we still have to wait to get beyond anecdotes (which we do provide).
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