Relevant to: Research and Policy
Sector: Environment
Summary: The authors question the utility of research and researcher credibility, relevance and legitimacy (CRELE) as indicators of policy-makers’ needs and effective science-policy interaction. They introduce an alternative set of indicators.

In this paper, Dunn and Laing question a popular theory amongst scholars of science-policy interactions that research is most effective at informing policy and decision-making processes when it is credible, relevant and legitimate (CRELE). The authors used semi-structured interviews with over 70 policy-makers, politicians, industry figures and boundary-spanners working on urban water policy in three Australian states to gain insight into this theory from a policy perspective. They argue that CRELE represents a primarily intra-scientific perspective, rather than the needs and perspectives of policy-makers themselves. They note that credibility and relevance were particularly poor indicators of policy-makers needs. They present an alternative set of criteria for effective science-policy interactions: applicability, comprehensiveness, timing and accessibility (ACTA). These findings will be of most interest to those researchers wishing to have a greater influence over policy-making.

This annotated bibliography was developed from the following paper:
Dunn, G., and Laing, M (2017) Policy makers perspectives on credibility, relevance and legitimacy (CRELE). Environment Science and Policy 76: 146-152.