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Louise Shaxson

Research Fellow, Research and Policy in Development

Louise Shaxson is a research fellow in the RAPID programme. A former director of the management consultancy company Delta Partnership, her work focuses on improving public sector policy and strategy within the broad framework of evidence-based policy making. Her career began at NRI and DFID where she ran the socio-economic methodologies programme. This led to work in Whitehall on how to construct a robust evidence base for policy; and an interest in how UK government departments can better scope, assemble and interpret evidence for increasingly interdependent policy issues. As part of this, Louise has conducted strategic reviews of the evidence landscape for key policy issues, advised how to change team structure and operations to introduce a knowledge brokering approach to research/policy links, and commented on organizational changes which could improve the research/policy interface. Over the past eight years she has focused on working with policymakers in line ministries, developing new tools for them to make more effective use of evidence and refining existing ones.

Outputs

Research uptake and impact: are we in danger of overstating ourselves?

Opinion - Articles and blogs - 24 January 2013

'Is the pressure to demonstrate concrete impacts on public policy encouraging researchers to overstate their claims about what we are likely to achieve?'

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Knowledge, policy and power in international development: a practical framework for improving policy

Publication - Discussion papers - 21 January 2013

ODI Background Notes

Harry Jones, Nicola Jones, Louise Shaxson and David Walker

This ODI Background Note explains how to incorporate an analysis of the dynamics around knowledge, policy and power (KPP) in order to improve the content, process and inclusivity of policy-making.

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Providing practical guidance for in-country programming: the value of analysing knowledge, policy and power

Publication - Discussion papers - 16 January 2013

ODI Background Notes

Harry Jones, Nicola Jones, Louise Shaxson and David Walker

This ODI Background Note argues that in-country programming decisions should incorporate an analysis of the dynamics around knowledge, policy and power (KPP) to improve their effectiveness and value for money.

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What makes models useful? Thinking about and implementing K*

Opinion - Articles and blogs - 30 October 2012

I work in international development, at a think tank. This means I work in the world of knowledge: communicating it, managing it, brokering it, translating it, mobilising it… However, it seems to me that I did the same when I worked in a UK-focused consultancy organisation. Or did I? The range of terms used in the knowledge field has expanded considerably over the past decade – so much so that our understanding of what knowledge workers do seems to have become muddier rather than clearer. K* (KStar) is a term that was coined by

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Expanding our understanding of K*: concept paper and case studies

Publication - Research reports and studies - 26 October 2012

Louise Shaxson et al

This short paper represents the beginning of a process to elucidate the core principles shared by K* component functions and processes. Furthermore, it suggests an overarching framework for thinking about K*, which will make sharing approaches and lessons learned easier.

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