Utilization of social science research knowledge in Canada

This paper addresses three questions: What is the extent of the use of social science research in Canada? Are there differences between the social sciences disciplines regarding extent of use? What are the determinants of utilization of social science research knowledge in Canada? The paper develops and tests an empirical model that derives its dependent and independent variables from prior studies in knowledge utilization. Instead of limiting utilization to instrumental use, the paper defines utilization as a six-stage cumulative process. Based on a survey of 1229 Canadian social science scholars, the findings of this study show that nearly half of the research results lend to some use by practitioners, professionals and decision-makers. Furthermore, comparisons of means of utilization show that the professional social sciences (social work and industrial relations) lend to higher levels of utilization than the disciplinary social sciences (economics, political science, sociology and anthropology). Multivariate regression analyses show that the most important determinants of utilization are the mechanisms linking the researchers to the users, the dissemination efforts, the adaptation of research outputs undertaken by the researchers, the users' context and the publication assets of the researchers. The other explanatory factors exert a more mitigated influence on knowledge utilization. The last part of the paper derives policy implications from the regression results. Overall, the most important finding of this paper is that knowledge utilization depends much more heavily on factors regarding the behavior of the researchers' and users' context than on the attributes of the research products. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.