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 Understanding
Networks: The Functions of Research Policy Networks
We are constantly talking about networks. Banks use their networks
to offer global services to customers; airlines fly passengers all
over the world via their networks of partners; news agencies use
media networks to keep us informed every minute of the day; and
terrorist networks threaten citizens around the world. The importance
of networks extends to the development sector: they organise civil
society to advocate for and implement change; they link the local
with the global, the private with the public; and they provide spaces
for the creation, sharing and dissemination of knowledge.
In a way, networks seem to make anything and everything happen.
But we have yet to understand what they are and what they can and
cannot do. In the development literature, a huge variety of policy
and social network concepts and applications exists. This paper
attempts to set out a framework to help clarify what research policy
networks do.
Networks and policy influence
ODI, as part of its RAPID programme, has begun a long term study
into the linkages between research and policy. One element of the
study addresses the roles that networks can play to make these links
more feasible. Perkin and Court's (2005) literature review of networks
and policy processes in development discussed many of the key emerging
themes surrounding the subject. The authors show that networks can
be useful as communicators or bridges between research, practice
and policy. Networks can help researchers influence policy processes
in several ways. This usefulness hints at the functions that networks
can play.
Why focus on functions?
The attention to functions is important for many reasons. Among
them, as in any organisation, what a network does is related to
how it is structured. Changing one without changing the other might
lead to negative impacts on the network and its objectives. Also,
introducing new functions to certain networks might be counterproductive
in terms of the achievement of the network's original objectives
and those who depend on them. These are very relevant issues for
research policy networks in the development field - in particular
as they re-form to have more of an influence on policy.
In addition, traditional definitions of networks do not necessarily
respond to the vast diversity that exists. These make assumptions
about what different types of networks should be like rather than
embrace their difference. A functional description could incorporate
a much broader number of research policy networks, which carry out
very different functions and roles and are organised in many different
ways to achieve the same objective evidence-based policy influence.
Functions
Building on the lessons of networks studies focusing on their
usefulness and functions, this paper addresses the problem of describing
networks by considering the possible functions that they can play
to link up the various processes that allow the bridging of research
and policy. To do so, it takes Portes and Yeo's (2001; Yeo, 2004;
Yeo and Mendizabal, 2004) suggestion that networks can fulfil six,
non-exclusive functions:
- Filter: 'Decide' what information is worth paying attention
to and organise unmanageable amounts of information.
- Amplify: Help take little known or little understood
ideas and make them more widely understood.
- Invest/provide: Offer a means to give members the resources
they need to carry out their main activities.
- Convene: Bring together different people or groups of
people.
- Community building: Promote and sustain the values and
standards of the individuals or organisations within them.
- Facilitate: Help members carry out their activities more
effectively.
Roles
Among research policy networks there are many fundamental differences.
Some networks are, in fact, key agents of that change, whereas others
merely provide their members with the support they need to pursue
their own research policy strategies. So it is probably easier to
think of the previously mentioned networks' functions within two
supra-functions or roles: agency and support.
- The agency role denotes a network that is charged by
its members to become the main agent of the change they aim to
achieve.
- The support role, on the other hand, works in the opposite
direction. In this case, the network itself (as an independent
entity or the secretariat) is not the agent of change.
In practice, most research policy networks have some characteristics
of both. Recognising these is important for considering the functions
they need to undertake.
Discussion and conclusion
A description of a network using the functional approach would
consider first its role: whether it is a support or agency network
(or what proportion of each it follows). Within this, one would
then consider the various functions the network carries out, as
done for the Peruvian networks used as examples in this paper. With
this information it would become easier to understand how these
networks can influence policy using research-based evidence.
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