Public Policy - , ,
Austin Delaney Public Policy Consultancy provides high-quality research and feasible policy recommendations on education, skills and innovation development. The policy specialities include; i) the education-economy nexus, especially the role of education in economic development, social mobility and inclusion, ii) models of educational evaluation, particularly teacher evaluation iii) entrepreneurship education, iv) education in regional development and v) PISA TALIS comparative analysis. The consultancy also focsues on concrete stakeholder engagement, effective communication and dissemination strategies, and and the absorptive capacity of policymakers to research outcomes. Research to action is a particularly important issue as often research is ignored. According to one study of 70,000 research projects undertaken on education, only 70 had a significant influence on education policy and practice (Molas et al, 2000). I have identified a number of interesting practices and tools in research communication and policy dialogue which recognise policymakers and researchers operate in different professional contexts with divergent frameworks of references and incentives. Clients of this consultancy include: National Centre on Education and the Economy (USA), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship (Germany), NERI Institute (Ireland), and the Innovation Policy Platform. The projects have focused on areas of international education benchmarking, entrepreneurship education, funding for higher education and innovation policy