Use of social science research on migration policy in the Czech Republic

Abstract

This case study focuses on the research activities of the Department of Ethnic Studies of the Institute of Ethnology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and the application of research results in the decision-making sphere during a time of major institutional change. The discussion covers a series of studies on migration issues, covering both immigration and emigration from the Czech Republic, funded by grant agencies or directly by decision-making bodies. The article notes the difficulties in relating the requirements and logic of basic research to the needs of policy makers, and recounts the gradual and broadly successful emergence of “bridging” institutions (grant agencies, science boards, common committees, controlling bodies, etc.) that reflect the mutual needs of the research and policy communities and allow stimuli for work, knowledge, and social experience, as well as intellectual influence, to flow freely in both directions. The form of communication is also shown to be of great importance, since effective bridging requires that scientific knowledge should be as usable as possible in policy-making and that the questions raised by decision-makers should come in such a form that scientists are able to answer them. Within this general picture, the specific contribution of social anthropologists and ethnologists to the decision-making process is to humanise them, by taking as a basis specific situations in the field and the fates of specific individuals and groups; to provide decision-makers with a methodological stimulus to consider the reality they relate to in a more sophisticated way; to bring a different social experience to bear, given the narrow circles in which decision-makers tend to operate; and finally to make the knowledge produced in scientific networks directly available to decision-makers.