Academics may not be celebrities, but their careful research is improving public policy

Last week Phillip Blond proposed a simplistic solution to the problem of why academics are failing to make policy impacts: less evidence, more “big ideas”. Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin find substantial flaws in this reasoning. Academics are in fact, already impacting policy. While rigorous analysis is not as glamorous as the sweeping grand narrative, it is essential to determine which ideas should impact policy and politics.