THE call for research or evidence-based practice is often heard nearly in all fields of human service, but the utilisation of the insights that are generated by the research is often found lacking in the real world.

Carol Weiss, an American policy analyst, was asked to evaluate ‘War on Poverty’, a social expansive legislation that was introduced by Lyndon B. Johnson, the then United States president, in 1964. She evaluated the programme and sent her report to Washington in three volumes, but never heard back from the decision-makers. The incident made her realise that the actual problem was to somehow make research output effective in practice.

In this backdrop, the nations that have supported scientific rigour over the years have by and large overcome this problem by formulating a larger framework, but countries like Pakistan clearly lack the paraphernalia and the passion that is required for such an approach.

Unfortunately, conducting meta-analysis and systematic reviews is rather common in Pakistan, but the applicability, say, of such research is seriously low as the gap between research and practice is quite wide in the country.

In essence, scientific research has been used as a symbol of national pride across the globe. Take India’s case of recent space exploration, for instance. The space venture became a new nation-building tool for India, and rightly so. Pakistan should also shift its focus towards research as well as the use of research output to meet its challenges in just about every field.

We should adopt research-to-practice approaches in our policy-making. There are many models, like the producer-push model and others, that are used worldwide to reduce the notorious gap between research and practice. Efforts should be made by our institutions towards designing a framework relative to our challenges.

Moreover, connecting this two-way street of research and practice is in itself a science that incorporates depth and complexities. We will do well to recali- brate our focus in this critical regard.

Sausan Fatima
Karachi

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2024