1. ‘Facts are Stubborn things’: Evidence-Based Policy Making or Policy-Based Evidence Making. 2. The Brakes on change - the Centrality of Old Policy Narratives. 3. Changing the Policy Narrative – the complex role of Ideas, Knowledge and Research in nudging change. 4. International Law – socializing States to a new narrative and right behaviour. 4. Case Study - Independent Living, Supported decision-Making and Personalised support in Ireland – a change in the ‘myth system’ of policy but not yet the ‘operation system’. 5. Lessons for you as the future generation of researchers. Good morning. This is a talk about research. More specifically it is a talk about the relationship between research and change. It affects you as you think about your future lives as researchers and the relationship of your work to change. But first a little story. I – along with people here like Patricia Noonan-Walsh, Martin Naughton and Eithne Fitzgerald – was involved in the Commission on the Status of Persons with disabilities in the mid 1990s. After elaborate listening exercises throughout the country and after extensive cost/benefit analysis we produced a Report that basically contained a blueprint for change. We congratulated ourselves on a job well done. We set a high benchmark for similar exercises throughout the world. The European Commissioner for Social Policy himself launched the Report which was strongly attended by the highest possible level delegation from the US Government. “Thats it” – I said to myself in my mind. Now Ireland is on an entirely different course.
1. ‘Facts are Stubborn things’: Evidence-Based Policy Making or Policy-Based Evidence Making. 2. The Brakes on change - the Centrality of Old Policy Narratives. 3. Changing the Policy Narrative – the complex role of Ideas, Knowledge and Research in nudging change. 4. International Law – socializing States to a new narrative and right behaviour. 4. Case Study - Independent Living, Supported decision-Making and Personalised support in Ireland – a change in the ‘myth system’ of policy but not yet the ‘operation system’. 5. Lessons for you as the future generation of researchers. Good morning. This is a talk about research. More specifically it is a talk about the relationship between research and change. It affects you as you think about your future lives as researchers and the relationship of your work to change. But first a little story. I – along with people here like Patricia Noonan-Walsh, Martin Naughton and Eithne Fitzgerald – was involved in the Commission on the Status of Persons with disabilities in the mid 1990s. After elaborate listening exercises throughout the country and after extensive cost/benefit analysis we produced a Report that basically contained a blueprint for change. We congratulated ourselves on a job well done. We set a high benchmark for similar exercises throughout the world. The European Commissioner for Social Policy himself launched the Report which was strongly attended by the highest possible level delegation from the US Government. “Thats it” – I said to myself in my mind. Now Ireland is on an entirely different course.