The use of research evidence (URE) in policy and practice is a multifaceted area relevant to numerous academic disciplines and policy domains. While there's been increased attention to URE, challenges remain in advancing the field, particularly regarding knowledge accumulation and effective intervention. This paper aims to map the URE community to foster conversation about its current state and future directions. The initial objective was to map scholars, practitioners, and funders directly involved in URE studies. This revealed that most disciplines have their own URE communities, but these are largely unconnected due to differing terminology and approaches. It also highlighted a larger, unmapped universe of individuals and organizations involved in URE. Mapping this field can reveal its structure and guide its growth and sustainability. While previous attempts at mapping exist, they relied on bibliometrics or remained within specific disciplines. This paper focuses on an initial mapping exercise exploring the work and networks of those studying URE, concluding with recommendations for community building and maximizing existing learning to identify new knowledge gaps.

URE's roots are in knowledge utilization, defined as activities aimed at increasing knowledge use to solve human problems. The core components—'evidence' and 'use'—are broadly construed, encompassing various evidence types and forms of use (instrumental, conceptual, political/strategic, symbolic). The study of URE centers on understanding policy and practice formation and evidence's role in that process. This includes examining decision-making, research dissemination, decision-maker responses, and the entire research lifecycle (evidence base creation, funding, priority setting, knowledge production, interpretation, and mobilization). URE scholarship has seen periods of increased and decreased focus, with a recent resurgence recognizing the interplay between evidence production and use. This is reflected in renewed scholarly venues, funding initiatives (e.g., William T. Grant Foundation, U.K.'s What Works Centres), and recognition of shared concerns with scholars in other fields like science policy, research assessment, evaluation, and science and technology studies (STS). Although connections between evidence production and use are acknowledged—such as the importance of user involvement in research priority setting—few attempts have been made to fully integrate these different disciplinary perspectives. Recent efforts toward interdisciplinary engagement through conferences and institutes addressing 'meta-science' and related themes have emerged, but the claim of URE as a 'new field' risks neglecting valuable prior work across diverse disciplines, potentially leading to the repetition of past efforts and missed learning opportunities. The diversity within the field is a strength, but challenges arise from the lack of a comprehensive description of its members, difficulties in community formation, varying terminologies, and potential research replication. Improving URE is a major policy and practice challenge. This paper aims to initiate a description of this scholarly community, identifying its strengths and challenges.

The researchers used an iterative surveying approach (2016-2018) to map the scholarly URE community. The survey aimed to characterize participants' disciplines, roles, and sectors, identify influential scholars and references, and ultimately build a network map. The initial sample (n=102) consisted of attendees of the William T. Grant Foundation's Using Research Evidence gathering. This sample was acknowledged as over-representing the US and scholars funded by the foundation (focused on child education and welfare). To expand the sample, a snowball approach was used, inviting participants to nominate up to five individuals they consult about URE. This yielded an additional 117 invitations, with 80 respondents (39 from the initial sample, 41 from the snowball). The final stage included participants in the inaugural Transforming Evidence meeting (n=54), resulting in a total of 134 participants. Three analytical approaches were used: descriptive statistics, social network analysis, and bibliometric analysis. Descriptive statistics examined community composition (discipline, policy area, funding sources, keywords). Social network analysis (using UCINet) explored interpersonal links based on participant nominations of influential individuals. Network cohesiveness (density, fragmentation), and homophily (same-discipline association) were analyzed. Bibliometric analysis examined the key references nominated by participants, identifying patterns and trends in influential works and assessing knowledge base fragmentation.

The study revealed that the URE scholarly community spans research, policy, and practice boundaries and encompasses diverse disciplines and fields. Most respondents worked in academia (over two-thirds), with others in research centers, think tanks, philanthropic organizations, non-profits, or government agencies. Fields of practice included education (26%), health sciences (22%), criminal justice (10%), public administration (8%), innovation and science policy (8%), and human services (8%), among others. Many respondents worked across multiple fields. Funding sources were diverse, ranging from private philanthropies to government agencies, reflecting global commitment but also potential challenges for coordination and sustained funding. Disciplinary traditions were predominantly social sciences (sociology, political science, organizational studies, psychology), with some representation of interdisciplinary fields like STS and communications. However, some relevant disciplines (economics, STS, communications) were underrepresented, potentially indicating exclusivity within the sample. Respondents used a wide range of keywords (263 terms) to describe their work, reflecting diversity but also hindering knowledge accessibility and potentially perpetuating silos. Although many respondents contributed to policy studies, knowledge utilization, evidence-based decision-making, research impact, implementation science, and knowledge mobilization, these represented distinct research traditions with unique characteristics. Network analysis revealed a large, reasonably dense cluster but also several smaller, disconnected clusters corresponding to specific disciplines, suggesting a lack of cohesion (low density, high fragmentation) and disciplinary siloing. Homophily analysis indicated that respondents' networks included both internal and external scholars, with about half coming from outside their own discipline, suggesting potential for boundary spanning. Analysis of cited references (185) revealed a fragmented network, with few references cited by multiple disciplines, and a lack of reliance on shared core works.

The findings suggest that while the URE community demonstrates multidisciplinarity and boundary-spanning potential, fragmentation and siloing hinder knowledge accumulation and field recognition. The lack of traditional field structures (journals, associations, conferences, career prospects) poses challenges for community growth and influence. To increase connectedness, the authors suggest strengthening links between disciplinary silos by establishing professional associations, conferences, and journals focused on URE. Existing initiatives like the William T. Grant Foundation's URE meeting and journals like Evidence and Policy are starting points but may not be sufficient. Funders should prioritize interdisciplinary and cross-sector research programs fostering sustained connections. To enhance inclusivity, the community should actively engage with researchers outside of academia, particularly from policy and practice communities, and marginalized groups such as Indigenous knowledge holders, to broaden perspectives and enrich URE scholarship. The current fragmented nature of URE scholarship limits its effectiveness in promoting best practices for capacity-building initiatives. This poses a risk of repetitive findings rather than cumulative knowledge. Collaboration with research funders to identify knowledge gaps and establish sustained funding is crucial for long-term sustainability. The lack of consistent and sustained funding hinders the field's ability to move beyond incremental advancements and contributes to a fragmented knowledge base.

The URE community, encompassing scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and funders, lacks strong interconnectivity. This leads to wasted research effort and prevents the field from effectively building upon decades of prior work. To improve the situation, the authors call for better mapping of the community, increased engagement to understand different research traditions, identification of opportunities for collaboration, and sustained leadership and investment to share knowledge. Only through these efforts can the field advance and truly benefit from its inherent multidisciplinarity and potential to improve the use of research evidence.

The study's findings are based on a limited sample, potentially biased towards those affiliated with the William T. Grant and Nuffield foundations. The snowball sampling method, while helpful, might not fully represent the entire URE landscape. Restricting participants to five nominations in the network analysis may limit the identification of weak ties between disciplines. The limitations of the data collection methods likely contributed to the observed low network density and high fragmentation. Despite these limitations, the results provide valuable insights into the structure and challenges of the URE community and serve as a basis for future, more comprehensive research.