You are here Evidence: Get your message across in 1-3-25
SELDSW’s Nick Harrison recently attended the fifth international Evidence based policy conference held in London which represented academics and policy-makers from over 15 countries internationally. The conference was packed with useful ideas for how to improve the use of evidence in policy-making including simple and effective solutions such as the Canadian 1-3-25 method of reporting (click below to read more). Full proceedings, contacts and downloads of papers presented at the conference can be found on the conference website at: www.cemcentre.org/eb2006/
An excellent idea presented at the conference was the use of what’s known as the ‘1-3-25’ method of research reporting. Developed by the Canadian Health Service Research Foundation the method is being adopted internally by both the Home Office and Government Social Research teams here in the UK. Its very simple and basically means that when reporting research you systematically produce three different versions which are suitable to a whole range of audiences:
25 page version
3 page version
1 page version
The method is based on research into how to get evidence used more effectively in policy and delivery starting with what makes different audiences (policy-makers, delivery managers, researchers etc.) actually read the evidence. For example, policy makers may often not read past the executive summary of a report (hence 1 page for them is best). Those involved in delivery often want a bit more detail (hence 3 for them) and researchers/academics may have a higher tolerance and may need to know more details (hence 25 page for them).
The Canadian Health Service Research Foundation also have a range of other useful methods and tools available on the ‘Knowledge Transfer’ section of their website:
Click here for the Canadian Health Service Research Foundation website
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