Louise Shaxson

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Kingston University

Background Knowledge brokering plays an important role in the evidence-to-policy system, but little is known about whether and how it occurs within government departments. Aims and objectives Using empirical evidence from one UK government department, this article analyses how knowledge brokering takes place inside the policy making process and wh...

CITATION: Cottier-Cook E.J., Cabarubias J.P., Brakel J., Brodie J., Buschmann A.H., Campbell I., Critchley A.T., Hewitt C.L., Huang J., Hurtado A.Q., Kambey C.S.B., Lim P.E., Liu T., Mateo J.P., Msuya F.E., Qi Z., Shaxson L., Stentiford G.D., Bondad-Reantaso M.G. 2022. A new Progressive Management Pathway for improving seaweed biosecurity. Nature C...

Highlights-Smallholder seaweed farmers in low and middle-income countries produce a large proportion of the global produce of red seaweed (also called eucheumatoid seaweed) to feed the global market for carrageenan, an important gelling agent in many industries. However, they face major challenges linked to climate and environmental changes and eco...

This book presents an academically rigorous yet practical guide to efforts to understand how knowledge, policy and power interact to promote or prevent change.

- Smallholder seaweed farmers in low and middle-income countries produce a large proportion of the global produce of red seaweed (also called eucheumatoid seaweed) to feed the global market for carrageenan, an important gelling agent in many industries. However, they face major challenges linked to climate and environmental changes and economic pre...

The seaweed industry makes a significant contribution to Tanzania’s economy, but this has been severely impacted due to climate-induced pest and disease outbreaks in the recent years. Seaweed farming is a crucial livelihood option for coastal communities, which may be marginalised or hindered in their income generating options, particularly th...

Sustaining economic interest in Malaysian seaweed cultivation and ensuring price stability will require coordination of downstream value chain activities including marketing and trading.-Incentives and financial support for Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and private sector investments could spearhead innovation in diversified seaweed-based value-a...

With increasing global demand for seaweed and derivative products including carrageenan, Malaysia has identified seaweed cultivation as a key sector in its Tenth Malaysian Plan, with the aim of increasing seaweed production and bringing economic benefits to coastal communities. After several years of growth however, since 2013 seaweed production ha...

Highlights 1. This policy brief highlights key challenges that must be addressed for the long-term sustainability of the global seaweed industry, ensuring its role in providing nature-based solutions within the sustainable ocean economy agenda and in contributing to the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030). 2. Seaweed...

Cottier-Cook, E.J., Nagabhatla, N., Asri, A., Beveridge, M., Bianchi, P., Bolton, J., Bondad-Reantaso, M.G., Brodie, J., Buschmann, A., Cabarubias, J., Campbell, I., Chopin, T., Critchley, A., De Lombaerde, P., Doumeizel, V., Gachon, C.M.M., Hayashi, L., Hewitt, C.L., Huang, J., Hurtado, A.Q., Kambey, C., Kim, G.H., Le Masson, V., Lim, P.E., Liu, T...

The Philippine seaweed industry is affected by multiple but interrelated risks. Farmers mainly encountered environment-related risks (e.g. disease, pest infestations) which, if unmanaged, could result to production failure. Traders and processors considered volatility of seaweed supply and poor quality of raw materials as precursors of other risks...

Seaweed farming is a major economic endeavor among the households in the key seaweed-production areas in the Philippines because of its high profitability potential relative to farming effort. This study used Social Network Analysis (SNA) to explore the social structure and the nature of support mechanism at the production segment of the seaweed va...

This special issue examines how relationships between research and policy in environmental and sustainability education (ESE) can be strengthened. Our contribution draws on three cases from outside the ESE space to analyse policymakers’ perspectives on using evidence to inform decision-making, and to show that government-based policymakers develop...

In March 2019, a group of global health leaders with expertise in influenza, vaccinology and pandemic preparedness was convened for a meeting titled “Shaping Meeting to explore the value of a coordinated work plan for epidemic and pandemic influenza vaccine preparedness.” Influenza epidemics occur annually in every country in the world, resulting i...

Global aquaculture production continues to increase, whilst capture fisheries stagnate. The cultivation of marine and freshwater species has undergone a dramatic global expansion since the 1960s (5.8 – 6.9% yr-1), exceeding the annual growth rates of many other important commercial agricultural products, such as livestock (1.9% yr-1) and cereals (2...

This paper analyses two reports of efforts to strengthen evidence-informed policy-making within government departments; one from the UK and one from the USA. It reveals a series of specific evidence-related practices which share common purposes. These are assessed against Parkhurst's principles of the good governance of evidence. A suite of seven p...

Evidence-based policymaking is both a technical and a political undertaking. Policymakers need the skills and knowledge to understand and articulate their evidence needs and to source and evaluate evidence. How they do this, and how they then apply evidence to diagnose and solve policy problems, is conditioned by their interests, values and beliefs...

Background The Demand-Driven Evaluations for Decisions (3DE) programme was piloted in Zambia and Uganda in 2012–2015. It aimed to answer evaluative questions raised by policymakers in Ministries of Health, rapidly and with limited resources. The aim of our evaluation was to assess whether the 3DE model was successful in supporting and increasing ev...

Efforts to improve the use of evidence amongst policymakers have largely taken an individual approach – focussing on training and mentoring – assuming a lack of knowledge and skills. Whilst there was value in this, policymakers were often unable to put this into practice because of the constraints they faced in the form of institution-wide systems...

This is the second in a series of documents that have been developed as part of the VakaYiko Consortium project, supporting the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) in South Africa as it embeds and enhances an evidence-informed approach to policy-making. It has been jointly produced by a team from DEA and from the Overseas Development Institut...

This is the first in a series of documents that have been developed as part of the VakaYiko Consortium project, supporting the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) in South Africa as it embeds and enhances an evidence informed approach to policy-making. It has been jointly produced by a team from DEA and from the Overseas Development Institute...

This is the third in a series of documents that have been developed as part of the VakaYiko Consortium project, supporting the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) in South Africa as it embeds and enhances an evidence informed approach to policy-making. It has been jointly produced by a team from DEA and from the Overseas Development Institute...

The UK's Food Standards Agency used two workshops to help them develop their evidence strategy. This Working Paper describes how the workshops were set up and run so as to ensure an inclusive process. It contains lessons for government departments in high-, middle- and low-income countries who are interested in taking a more strategic approach to m...

In 2004, the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) designed and implemented an Evidence Investment Strategy (EIS). This was an innovative attempt to understand what was really needed for a government department to implement an evidence-informed approach to policymaking. Since then, the process has been repeated twice; each...

This report examines the factors promoting and inhibiting the uptake of evidence from strategic evaluations in the EU's development co-operation programme. Four sets of recommendation areas are presented: (i) promote and incentivise a learning culture, specifically through stronger leadership from senior management; (ii) improving ownership of the...

Effective science communication within the policy domain is becoming more challenging due to the increasing complexity of, and higher aspirations for, public policy making. Not only are policy issues becoming more multifaceted and interlinked, but certain features of modern policy-making salient to diffusing knowledge are in tension with each other...

There has been a great deal of interest in recent years in supporting evidence-informed policymaking in developing countries. In particular, there have been efforts to build the capacity of researchers and research intermediaries to supply appropriately packaged research information (for example in the form of policy briefs) to policymakers. While...

Work supported in part by World Bank , this paper summarizes the work on Kstar and provides an analysis of the functions associated with its practice. It provides readers with a comprehensive reference list and a selection of case studies from diverse disciplines. http://www.inweh.unu.edu/River/KnowledgeManagement/documents/KStar_ConceptPaper_FINAL...

The need for policy makers to understand science and for scientists to understand policy processes is widely recognised. However, the science-policy relationship is sometimes difficult and occasionally dysfunctional; it is also increasingly visible, because it must deal with contentious issues, or itself becomes a matter of public controversy, or b...

The questions submitted to this exercise. (DOCX)

In the past few years, the Overseas Development Institute’s Research and Policy in Development Programme has increasingly collaborated with or managed large multiyear projects where it has been responsible for helping local institutions and organisations to build their capacity to use knowledge to improve policies and practices. Setting aside the i...

Submission to the Science and Technology Committee on Science and International Development on science capacity building in developing countries’

The need for policy makers to understand science and for scientists to understand policy processes is widely recognised. However, the science-policy relationship is sometimes difficult and occasionally dysfunctional; it is also increasingly visible, because it must deal with contentious issues, or itself becomes a matter of public controversy, or b...

How can we strengthen the science-policy interface for plastics, the environment and human health? In a complex policy area with multiple stakeholders, it is important to clarify the nature of the particular plastics-related issue before trying to understand how to reconcile the supply and demand for evidence in policy. This article proposes a simp...

Over the past ten years the literature on evidence-based policy making has paid increasing attention to the need to focus not only on what evidence is supplied to the policy process, but also on how it is supplied and the nature of demand for evidence from policy makers. This paper draws on such academic perspectives as well as experiences at the U...

In this, the second of two review papers, we discuss potential management strategies for the soil pest problems encountered by smallholder farmers in sub‐Saharan Africa, and analyse the potential role for IPM in smallholder agriculture. Adopting a farming systems approach is seen as essential, given the resource constraints on smallholders: this en...

Traditional (big C) communications in large organizations usually serve to ensure consistent over-arching messaging internally, and to the public at large. To deliver on their public-good mandate, science-based governmental institutions must do more than broadcast the department’s position. They must communicate not only broad policy directions, bu...

The concept of a knowledge-based approach to policy making (also referred to as 'evidence-based policy making' or 'science meets policy') has been around for 10 years, and is widely 'signed up to' by Governments. This paper examines the theory and the practice at national government (using the UK as a case study) and European levels, looking at how...

English This article examines the reasons we need evidence for policy, discusses where evidence is needed in the policy-making process, and the nature of the evidence base for strategy and policy. Working relationships between policy makers and their advisers are key: as policy makers come from a variety of backgrounds, developing a common language...

The parasitic weed Striga asiatica is a serious problem in maize crops in southern Malawi and much of the rest of southern Africa. The authors spent two years studying farmer knowledge of the weed in an area of south-eastern Malawi, and the links between population pressure, soil fertility and Striga incidence. Following a discussion of the history...

In this, the first of two review papers, we discuss the soil pest problems encountered in smallholder farming systems in sub‐Saharan Africa. Host ranges, interactions and environmental factors affecting the major weed, insect and disease pests in the region are discussed as well as the effects of cultivation practices on pest occurrence.

The diversity of cropping patterns on smallholder farms in southern Malawi was analysed using a framework that explicitly incorporates the extent of intercropping in each field. Diversity is defined as the relative abundance of each crop in the overall cropping pattern. Six indices of diversity were constructed for 208 farms and used in a model of...

In another paper at this workshop, Diana Carney discusses the new, holistic approaches to poverty reduction, and the role of agricultural research. This paper draws directly on her conclusions to examine implications for monitoring and impact assessment activities in agricultural research programmes. Although 'traditional' impact assessment techniq...

Collaborative Workshop on Evidence-based Policy-making. Pretoria, South Africa, 19 - 20 November 2008 This handbook summarises the background behind, format of and lessons learned from a Collaborative Workshop on Evidence-based Policy-making that was held in November 2008. The workshop was organised by CSIR and funded by the UK's Department of Food...