Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

    While the relationship between research and policy making continues to evolve, accounts of a dysfunctional divide between knowledge and policy are supported by an extensive body of empirical research. In Taiwan, the government seeks to adopt valuable findings from researches through many ways, including conducting government-commissioned research projects, establishing think tanks, or recruiting researchers as governmental staffs straightforward. However, official statistics show that little research is actually used for policy making and governmental practice.

    This research aims to understand the status quo of research utilization in governments, explore the problems of knowledge-policy gap, and propose solutions to bridge the gap. Taking the Ministry of Education (MoE) of Taiwan as an example, the research framework is based on theories including two-communities, knowledge utilization, and agency theory. Research data is collected through surveys and interviews that will be targeted to administrative staffs and researchers. The findings may benefit to enhance the knowledge use in governments.

Keywords: two-communities, knowledge utilization, agency theory, knowledge-policy gap