This is the third day in our series of posts on AARE’s education priorities for the 2025 federal election. Today’s posts are about research-informed policy.

The Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) is recommending five key education priorities for the next term of federal parliament. One of these recommendations is research informed policy. Education policy should be informed by rigorous and robust research and draw on the latest research findings to deliver high functioning and inclusive education.

The rise of ‘knowledge brokers’

The recommendation that policy is informed by research comes in the context of a  considerable increase of ‘knowledge brokers’ or ‘intermediary organisations’. This includes global organisations such as the OECD, the World Bank, and in Australia, the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) and Social Venture Australia’s Evidence For Learning.

Knowledge brokers often work in networks. For example, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) established the ‘Evidence for Education network’, and as part of this network, funded ‘Evidence for Learning’ (as owned by Social Venture Australia). Evidence for Learning distributes EEF’s ‘evidence based’ toolkits. It also served as a ‘pilot’ for the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO). The Australian Education Research Organisation works with other knowledge brokers, such as ‘The Centre for Evidence and Implementation (CEI)’ (as was demonstrated in the Strong Beginnings Report). Their role is to ‘broker’ knowledge, advance reform agendas, build ‘evidence’ to support particular agendas and influence policy. They often share similar reform agendas, such as an emphasis on ‘what works’.

A ‘knowledge broker’ is an important role because they can effectively leverage large-scale and systemic policy change, sometimes with questionable knowledge bases.

The risks of knowledge brokers

Knowledge brokers are typically non-state actors, although in the case of AERO we can see a blurring of this divide (AERO is funded by the government, but also builds revenue from goods and services, and is working towards private/philanthropic funding).

Researchers have pointed to particular strategies of knowledge brokers in influencing reforms, as seen from other contexts such as the United States. For example, in relation to school voucher programs in the US, these programs were principally based on ‘evidence’ that the voucher programs resulted in improved student academic performance. But this shifted when so-called ‘gold standard’ studies (randomized controlled trials) showed large, negative impacts.

When this occurred, the advocacy simply changed its messaging in order to emphasize other objectives of the program. This highlights the role that knowledge brokers can play in supporting or advocating as based upon particular ideological agendas.

Actors within these organisations often represent particular knowledge fields and expertise. For example, many are drawn from consultancy fields. It is rare for actors to be drawn from the education field, with the exception of teachers from Teach For Australia. They tend to represent ‘incentivist’ ways of thinking; that is, support agendas to increase profit-making and commercialisation in schools.

‘Purchasing’ evidence

A risk of ‘knowledge brokers’ is less transparency in terms of whom interests they are represented and obscuring vested interests (we often don’t know who is funding which organisation). A further potential risk is a declining role of traditional research (such as peer-reviewed research), although this is not always the case.

The risk of these organisations is that the role they perform is to ‘purchase’ evidence and provide legitimacy for reforms. They typically outsource goods and services for profit. Whilst many claim they are ‘neutral’ or ‘bipartisan’, this is to be questioned.

Of course we should be cautious of simultaneously romanticising university researchers. There have been cases where university researchers have been ‘purchased’ or paid off to support particular products (e.g. Coca-cola, cigarettes, the fossil fuels industry).

How can we advance research informed and evidence-based policy?

As academics, we could possibly learn from knowledge brokers.

Many of these organisations argue that education research is irrelevant, inaccessible, too jargonistic or abstract. And rather than feeling affronted by this, it is possible that academics endeavour to leverage it in order to better influence education policy.

It is true that academics may be guilty of only writing for academic audiences (e.g. prestigious academic journals). Our work may be difficult or costly to access. It may be written in inaccessible ways for time-poor policy makers. It is not about ‘dumbing down’ work but writing for different audiences.

Knowledge brokers are packaging their work in very appealing ways that prioritise time efficiency and accessibility. 

Bringing research to the public in high-impact ways

This is something for university researchers to take on, in terms of writing for the public and engaging with the public, in order to bring their research to the public in high-impact ways.

It may mean writing or speaking in different formats and for different mediums such as newspapers, blogs or social media, and responding to topical issues. 

In Australia, we are lucky to have highly respected education researchers. An article published in Higher Education Research and Development Journal, found that “most Australian universities are performing above the world average in educational research. Australian universities perform especially well on citation indicators, with more than 75% of universities performing above the world average.”

In this respect, we do have a great deal of expertise within universities without resorting to think-tanks or knowledge brokers, who do not make their finances or funding apparent.

We should also be critical when it comes to the reforms that these organisations are actively promoting and pushing. As evident in the most recent ‘Strong Beginnings’ report, which advocates for ‘brain science’, this is very much aligned with the thinking of think-tanks like Centre for Independent Studies and the Education Endowment Foundation. These actors tend to share advocacy strategies for particular reform agendas. 

Emma Rowe is an associate professor in the School of Education, Deakin University. She is a recipient of the Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Grant (DECRA) 2021–2024 and was a Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholar (2020) at Indiana University. Her research is interested in policy and politics in education.