Shifting toward healthy and sustainable diets: How to optimise evidence use for policy and practice
Appendix A: Generation Mechanisms table
This is a table of common ways to generate evidence, including associated challenges, benefits and applicability to different participant groups.
Rows are marked to signify effective, non-effective, partially-effective or undetermined (based on available literature).
Table 7 Mechanisms for Evidence Generation
| Mechanism | Generation type/Description | Challenges | Benefits | Target audience | Effectiveness |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calls for evidence (partially effective) | Pull: public call for evidence, often by a government entity, on a particular salient topic/issue(footnote) | Clarity; relevance to terms of reference | Formal, direct engagement with policymakers | Policymakers; decision-maker practitioners | Moderately effective; require more strategic planning of purposes and goals. |
| Deliberation platforms (effective) | Co-creation: “a mechanism through which stakeholders with diverse perspectives can both discuss problems and explore potential solutions” for a political issue(footnote) | Scale and context; Participant diversity and representation; Bias (participants and facilitator); Clarity and transparency; Engagement |
Fosters mutual understanding; Crosses sectors and disciplines; Encourages social learning; Collaborative engagement |
Policymakers; researchers, practitioners | Effective when specific conditions are met: 1) long-term perspective; 2) mutualistic/ collaborative |
| Funded Commissions (effective) | Pull: research funded directly by government bodies or other funders, focused on a specific topic or need | Navigating politics, Time capacity, Coverage, Credibility, Scale and context |
Funded; Direct engagement with policymakers/ practitioners |
Government bodies, Industry, Third sector, NGOs | Effective for both short- and long-term policy decisions |
| Professional Partnerships (effective) | Co-creation: “policy/ practice- research collaborations, usually with a limited lifespan”(footnote)(footnote) (i.e. expert elicitation, committees, networks, Areas of Research Interest, etc.) | Scale and context, Navigating politics, Long-term impact |
Often funded; Direct engagement with policymakers/ practitioners; Fosters mutual understanding |
Researchers and policymakers/practitioners | Highly effective under specific conditions: 1) funded, 2) long-term perspective, 3) mutualistic/ collaborative in nature |
| Training and fellowships (undetermined) | Co-creation: formal skills development scheme, often funded (i.e. skills training), secondments, internships, fellowships. | Engagement, Unpredictable knowledge base, Clarity, Comprehension |
Direct engagement, Capacity-building, Potentially funded |
Researchers and policymakers/practitioners | Unclear/mixed/unavailable evidence on effectiveness. |
Source: Authors informed by Warira et al. (2017), Ferrari, M. (2017) and Gerard, Koch & Kowarsch (2018)
Revision log
Published: 18 October 2022
Last updated: 23 October 2023