Social Research In Environmental Contexts (A DEFRA Science Advisory Council Paper, 2007)

In 2007 I was one of a small group of people from the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Science Advisory Council (Defra SAC) who produced a report on The Use of Social Research in Defra.
Given the urgency – at last – now attached to demands that we face up to climate change and other global environmental challenges, this seems a good time to revisit that report.
Defra SAC Social Science Sub-Group‘s report to the Defra Chief Scientific Advisor (CSA) focused on the capacity and use of social research to inform and assist policy development within the Department.

.

This is the EXECUTIVE SUMMARY of the Use of Social Research in Defra 2007 report

Social research, alongside other key skills in Defra including those in natural and physical sciences, has a significant contribution to make to the Department’s evidence-base for policy-making and research strategy. Social research covers a wide range of disciplines including sociology, psychology, and anthropology; and for the purposes of this report is considered separately from economics and
statistics, both numerically strong within the Department.

It is clear that social research has an increasingly important role within Defra, given the challenging context in which the Department operates. The Department continues to undergo a significant transformation as it shifts away from a largely regulatory role to a more enabling one. The main challenges facing the Department are increasingly linked to providing environmental leadership and
promoting changes in attitude and behaviour, both amongst key stakeholders and the wider public, particularly in relation to response and adaptation to climate change and the need to put sustainable development into practice. Many of the challenges facing Defra cut across departmental, national and international boundaries.

This report focuses on the uptake and capacity of social research within core [1] Defra, although the findings will have relevance to the wider Defra network, other government departments, the Devolved Administrations and beyond. The sub-group found that the small central team of social researchers in core Defra were doing excellent work but were clearly overstretched. Where the professional social researchers had been involved there were good examples of the effective use of social research to develop and implement policy and research. However the sub-group found that, with a few exceptions, the potential contributions social research could make to effective policy development were generally not well understood within the Department’s policy and research groups. Social research was often narrowly defined, for example, as engagement or consultation. Furthermore, the sub-group’s investigations highlighted that social research was not always accorded equivalent status to other contributions, such as that from the natural sciences, to the evidence base for the policy cycle and research strategy. When advice from Defra’s professional social researchers was not sought by the instigators of research, it seems probable that social research questions had often been poorly framed or not asked in the first place; resulting policy and associated research may not then have been fit for purpose (insofar as that purpose / those purposes had been fully articulated in all respects originally).
[1] That is central Defra, excluding the wider Defra “family” or network, which includes Executive Agencies, Non-Departmental Public Bodies and other delivery bodies.

The sub-group’s investigations suggested that the current professional social research capacity within core Defra was not sufficient to meet the needs of existing or future Departmental policy objectives. It lacked status within the hierarchy and sufficient personnel to provide the service needed. Defra did not as yet have enough social scientists, at the right levels, to enable them to form a critical capacity that can routinely inform and develop all relevant aspects of the Department’s work. This is likely to have an adverse impact on Defra’s ability to access effectively appropriate external social research resources, and to communicate intelligently across government, with other stakeholders (howsoever defined), and internationally.

Many of the key policy challenges for which Defra is responsible lie at the intersection of social and technical, or social and ecological issues. These call for interdisciplinary engagement, that effectively combine social, natural science and other professional, such as engineering, inputs. Defra is well placed to pioneer an integrated and flexible approach to the use of different sources of professional
expertise in providing the evidence base for policy.

In order to address these issues the sub-group made a number of key recommendations in the following areas:

Defra needs to develop and articulate a clear strategy and vision for building social research capacity in-house that is paced to reflect increased uptake across the Department. The number of in-house social researchers should be increased but this must be tied to clear terms of reference and aligned to a sustainable business plan, supported across Defra’s different programme areas.

Social research inputs should be included at all key stages of the policy cycle.  Social researchers in the Department must be integrated into policy and research development alongside other key professional groups including natural scientists and economists, from the outset.

Defra must improve the status, visibility, and professional identity of social researchers in the Department, in order to raise awareness and increase the uptake of social research. Critically, this should include social research leadership and representation at senior management levels.

Project Officers [2] have a key role in linking evidence and policy (previously identified in the SAC Governance sub-group End to End Review of Science into Policy in Defra [SAC-G(06)14]). This evidence should also include social research as part of the evidence base. Project Officers within Defra need to be draw from all professional groups including social research in order to develop a genuine multi-disciplinary approach and build in-house capacity in social research skills.
[2] Project Officers are the people directly responsible for project managing Defra science projects through from commissioning to delivery. They also play a key role in interfacing between customers and researchers.

Social researchers within core Defra require a particular and wide-ranging understanding of the potential contributions of different disciplines within social research. As capacity increases, their role is not only to provide particular perspectives and advice but also to provide access to additional specialist social research skills through an effective external network with partner organisations, both within the Defra network and beyond. It is clear that, as in the natural and physical sciences, the Department will not develop, and should not seek to achieve, comprehensive internal social research expertise. Defra needs the capacity to access external expertise as an informed customer. In the short term this is likely to involve working with partners with existing large networks such as the ESRC or major foundations.

Changes to the Defra organisational and management framework, being developed under the Departmental “Renew” programme, offer a significant opportunity to develop more effective and efficient processes that recognise all contributions to the evidence base, including social research, and ensure access to existing knowledge.

. . . . . . .

The full Final Report can be read here.

The Defra 2008 response to the Report, very largely concurring with the recommendations made, is also available.

Membership of the 2007 Defra SAC Social Science Group was

Prof Chris Gaskell (Chair)
Hilary Burrage
Prof Ian Diamond
Prof Peter Guthrie
Prof Philip Lowe
Sir John Marsh
and, for some meetings,
Head of Defra research, Janet Gawn.

~ ~ ~

Your Comments on this topic are welcome.  
Please post them in the box which follows…..

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Books by Hilary Burrage on female genital mutilation

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6684-2740

Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation: A UK Perspective (Hilary Burrage, Ashgate / Routledge 2015).
Full contents and reviews   HERE.

FEMALE MUTILATION: The truth behind the horrifying global practice of female genital mutilation  (Hilary Burrage, New Holland Publishers 2016).
Full contents and reviews   HERE.