What do practitioners want from research, what do funders fund and what needs to be done to know more about what works in the new world of children's services?

This paper is intended as a contribution to the debate on the place of research in children's services from a funder of social research and three researchers, two of whom spent (between them) 12 years in an organisation delivering services to children and young people. We draw on two studies, the first identifying the questions to which practitioners in social care wanted answers; the second describing the degree of 'fit' between funded research and practitioners' questions. These inform a discussion of the kinds of research and research infrastructure needed to support high-quality social care services for children.