How do academic public administration and public policy researchers affect policymaking? Functional groupings from survey data

Using data from an original survey of 409 authors of recent articles in major public administration and policy journals, we investigate the mechanisms whereby academic public administration and policy researchers influence practice and the factors affecting their magnitude of impact through different mechanisms. Through factor analysis, we elucidate four broad “impact channels” through which such researchers influence practice: research uptake, teaching, media engagement, and expert consultation. While researcher motivation to achieve research use by practitioners is significant for most of these channels, demographic characteristics including researcher productivity, rank, career length, gender, and race are less significant. Superior university quality associates positively with achievement of impact through all channels save teaching. Results validate functional grouping of societal impact mechanisms and extend previous findings about associations between motivation, productivity, university quality, and impact of research.