National Policy Agenda Research Articles

Towards New Co-Creational Approaches for Research and Supervision in Professional Journalism Degree Programmes

ABSTRACTPostgraduate research and supervision within the context of a professional degree in many ways constitute unchartered territory and new and innovative strategies will have to be developed to meet the calls from national policy agenda as well as the academy for increased postgraduate throughputs—demands often at odds with the development and prioritising of vocational skills development. Through a survey as well as interviews conducted with journalism lecturers as well as postgraduate students, I outline some of the challenges experienced and how these can be overcome to meet academic criteria for postgraduate research as well as broader national development goals and transformation agendas. The responses talk to a need for maintaining industry links and for recognising professional experience in the supervision process and what such experience contributes not only to the research project itself, but also to the articulation of new co-creative approaches to supervision.

Setting performance-based financing in the health sector agenda: a case study in Cameroon

BackgroundMore than 30 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have introduced performance-based financing (PBF) in their healthcare systems. Yet, there has been little research on the process by which PBF was put on the national policy agenda in Africa. This study examines the policy process behind the introduction of PBF program in Cameroon.MethodsThe research is an explanatory case study using the Kingdon multiple streams framework. We conducted a document review and 25 interviews with various types of actors involved in the policy process. We conducted thematic analysis using a hybrid deductive-inductive approach for data analysis.ResultsBy 2004, several reports and events had provided evidence on the state of the poor health outcomes and health financing in the country, thereby raising awareness of the situation. As a result, decision-makers identified the lack of a suitable health financing policy as an important issue that needed to be addressed. The change in the political discourse toward more accountability made room to test new mechanisms. A group of policy entrepreneurs from the World Bank, through numerous forms of influence (financial, ideational, network and knowledge-based) and building on several ongoing reforms, collaborated with senior government officials to place the PBF program on the agenda. The policy changes occurred as the result of two open policy windows (i.e. national and international), and in both instances, policy entrepreneurs were able to couple the policy streams to effect change.ConclusionThe policy agenda of PBF in Cameroon underlined the importance of a perceived crisis in the policy reform process and the advantage of building a team to carry forward the policy process. It also highlighted the role of other sources of information alongside scientific evidence (eg.: workshop and study tour), as well as the role of previous policies and experiences, in shaping or influencing respectively the way issues are framed and reformers’ actions and choices.

Putting Food Sovereignty to Work: Civil Society Governmentalities and Canada’s People’s Food Policy Project (2008–2011)

ABSTRACTThe People’s Food Policy Project (PFPP) used ‘food sovereignty’ to unite civil society organizations and build a national food policy agenda in Canada from 2008 to 2011. Agri-food scholarship largely highlights the resistance and empowerment dynamic of food sovereignty in the context of neoliberal capital relations. We propose that the story of what food sovereignty discourse does, or could do, in the work of civil society organizations (CSOs), is more complicated. This article contributes to agri-food literature and CSOs studies by examining the governmentalities of the PFPP. We find that the PFPP’s food sovereignty produced at least two discourses: food sovereignty as ethic, or a governmentality of resistance and agrarian empowerment; and food sovereignty as tactic, which we see as a governmentality of administration by CSOs. While PFPP activists increasingly share a spoken commitment to food sovereignty, the analytic of governmentality allows us to show these important differences in the movement, rooted in how CSO actors understand their day-to-day work, and the tensions these differences bring to their seemingly united agenda.

Investigating the ways in which health information technology can promote antimicrobial stewardship: a conceptual overview.

Antimicrobial resistance is now recognised as a threat to health worldwide. Antimicrobial stewardship aims to promote the responsible use of antibiotics and is high on international and national policy agendas. Health information technology has the potential to support antimicrobial stewardship in a number of ways, but this field is still poorly characterised and understood. Building on a recent systematic review and expert roundtable discussions, we take a lifecycle perspective of antibiotic use in hospitals and identify potential targets for health information technology-based interventions to support antimicrobial stewardship. We aim for this work to help chart a future research agenda in this critically important area.

Jobs, water or conservation? Deconstructing the Green Economy in South Africa’s Working For Water Programme

South Africa’s Working for Water (WfW) programme launched in 1995 has received national and international acclaim for its attention to clearing alien species and providing employment among historically disadvantaged communities. In recent years, the Green Economy narrative has pervaded the national policy agenda, with the WfW programme being showcased as a symbol of Green Economy praxis. The paper considers recent developments in WfW and whether its objectives have been achieved in light of tensions and constraints associated with the macro-policy environment. Drawing upon evidence from field-based research in Western Cape Province, the experience of the Agulhas Biodiversity Initiative (ABI) is examined, in which a number of stakeholders including private landowners, community members and local government bodies are collaborating in a landscape management initiative. Despite some worthwhile benefits, ABI has suffered from some problems and contradictions. In the future such projects need to have stronger environmental objectives, but in reality these are likely to be constrained by neo-liberal thinking at national and supra-national levels.

Setting National Policy Agendas in Light of the Denmark Results for Well-being

Setting National Policy Agendas in Light of the Denmark Results for Well-being

Ensuring the Right to Education for Roma Children: an Anglo-Swedish Perspective

Access to public education systems has tended to be below normative levels where Roma children are concerned. Various long-standing social, cultural, and institutional factors lie behind the lower levels of engagement and achievement of Roma children in education, relative to many others, which is reflective of the general lack of integration of their families in mainstream society. The risks to Roma children’s educational interests are well recognized internationally, particularly at the European level. They have prompted a range of policy initiatives and legal instruments to protect rights and promote equality and inclusion, on top of the framework of international human rights and minority protections. Nevertheless, states’ autonomy in tailoring educational arrangements to their budgets and national policy agendas has contributed to considerable international variation in specific provision for Roma children. As this article discusses, even between two socially liberal countries, the UK and Sweden, with their well-advanced welfare states and public systems of social support, there is a divergence in protection, one which underlines the need for a more consistent and positive approach to upholding the education rights and interests of children in this most marginalized and often discriminated against minority group.

Talk to the hand: strategic spatial planning as persuasive storytelling of the Loop City

ABSTRACTThe paper analyses how the spatial vision of the Loop City for the Øresund Region has played an important persuasive role in legitimizing and mobilizing local and national political support for a light rail link along the outer ring road in the Greater Copenhagen Area. The paper discusses the persuasive power of spatial concepts and supportive storylines in bringing transport infrastructure projects onto the national policy agenda. In conclusion, the paper calls for critical attention to the rationalities underpinning practices of persuasive storytelling in contemporary strategic spatial planning.

Why Performance-Based Financing in Chad Failed to Emerge on the National Policy Agenda

—Supported by the World Bank (WB), Chad implemented a performance-based financing (PBF) scheme as a pilot, from October 2011 to May 2013. However, despite promising results and the government's stated commitment to ensure its continuation after the World Bank's departure, PBF failed to come onto the national policy agenda. This article aims to explain why this was the case, an especially interesting question given that several factors were favorable for project continuation. Data for this case study were collected through literature review and key informant interviews. We applied Kingdon's agenda setting theory to explain this failure. We found that though the potential of PBF to address challenges facing the Chadian health system was confirmed by internal and external evaluations of the pilot, it failed to move from the governmental agenda to the decision agenda. The main reason was a lack of dedicated policy entrepreneurs, resulting in a weak actual ownership of the policy by national authorities and key stakeholders. We tried to understand why such policy entrepreneurs failed to emerge.

Pragmatic, Progressive, Problematic: Addressing Vulnerability through a Local Street Sex Work Partnership Initiative

Whilst it remains a criminal activity to solicit sex publicly in the UK, it has become increasingly popular to configure sex workers as ‘vulnerable’, often as a means of foregrounding the significant levels of violence faced by female street sex workers. Sex work scholars have highlighted that this discourse can play an enabling role in a moralistic national policy agenda which criminalises and marginalises those who sell sex. Yet multiple and overlapping narratives of vulnerability circulate in this policy arena, raising questions about how these might operate at ground level. Drawing on empirical data gathered in the development of an innovative local street sex work multi-agency partnership in Leeds, this article explores debates, discourses and realities of sex worker vulnerability. Setting applied insights within more theoretically inclined analysis, we suggest how vulnerability might usefully be understood in relation to sex work, but also highlight how social justice for sex workers requires more than progressive discourses and local initiatives. Empirical findings highlight that whilst addressing vulnerability through a local street sex work multi-agency partnership initiative, a valuable platform for shared action on violence in particular can be created. However, an increase in fundamental legal and social reform is required in order to address the differentiated and diverse lived experiences of sex worker vulnerability.

One hundred years of work design research: Looking back and looking forward.

In this article we take a big picture perspective on work design research. In the first section of the paper we identify influential work design articles and use scientific mapping to identify distinct clusters of research. Pulling this material together, we identify five key work design perspectives that map onto distinct historical developments: (a) sociotechnical systems and autonomous work groups, (b) job characteristics model, (c) job demands-control model, (d) job demands-resources model, and (e) role theory. The grounding of these perspectives in the past is understandable, but we suggest that some of the distinction between clusters is convenient rather than substantive. Thus we also identify contemporary integrative perspectives on work design that build connections across the clusters and we argue that there is scope for further integration. In the second section of the paper, we review the role of Journal of Applied Psychology (JAP) in shaping work design research. We conclude that JAP has played a vital role in the advancement of this topic over the last 100 years. Nevertheless, we suspect that to continue to play a leading role in advancing the science and practice of work design, the journal might need to publish research that is broader, more contextualized, and team-oriented. In the third section, we address the impact of work design research on: applied psychology and management, disciplines beyond our own, management thinking, work practice, and national policy agendas. Finally, we draw together observations from our analysis and identify key future directions for the field. (PsycINFO Database Record

Why 'one size fits all' concept and policies of inclusive education is insufficient to achieve ‘true’ inclusivity in a national context

In today’s world, education is a basic human right and it is desired that every human being regardless of his or her personal and societal circumstances should get a fair chance to get access to education. ‘Inclusive education’ as a concept exists since the mid 19th century which was later translated into various international policy frameworks. Often these international policies had a push impact towards national policy agendas. Majority of the nations that adopted those international policies were hardly successful in achieving ‘inclusive’ learning practices, as because, ‘inclusivity’ has various wider (local) aspects which needs to be considered. A chronological review of relevant international policies and Bangladesh government’s policies is presented in the early segments and then shortfalls of current notions of inclusivity is explored in this paper. A brief overview is given based on the author’s experience of running a tablet based disaster preparedness training in Bangladesh over three years’ period, that used networked learning concepts to promote ‘inclusivity’. This paper also explores, how the training programme needed to broaden its perspectives to accommodate inclusivity. It was found during the training that the current notion and understanding of the term relates to only a fragment of the people to which inclusivity should be aimed. Adult learners are in a disadvantageous position as the national policies hardly mention their needs. Within a group of policies aimed to serve (special) children in education, practitioners are ill informed to support adult learners’ in formal, informal and non-formal education sector. Reports on outcome of the alternate education systems consisting of private education and NGO led training in Bangladesh noted that there is a high level of drop outs those who attend any form of training. Majority of the participants lack awareness and urges to learn about something new. Due to monotonous delivery standards the participants are disengaged quickly with the feeling that they have no voice in their learning experience. The participants crave for a system which would acknowledge and value their experience and bridge those experiences to construct something more useful. The disaster preparedness training thus had to adapt to these less explored inclusivity issues to ensure, there is a true wider ‘inclusive’ participation. This paper reinforces that, there is a need to understand the varied needs of the adult learners to ensure they are well integrated in any format of the education system, especially where cooperative learning takes place.

Design for Europe: Employing Scenarios to Benchmark the Effectiveness of European Design Policy

Effective design innovation policy is increasingly recognized as a driver for competitiveness and prosperity of nations. Policymakers in Europe face a challenge when evaluating the effectiveness of design innovation policies due to a lack of reliable and comparable data. The European Commission has demonstrated its commitment to design through investment in a number of initiatives that seek to place design at the core of national policy agendas. This paper provides an overview of the policy for design agenda in Europe, discusses the challenges of evaluation, offers a proposed approach to macro design innovation policy indicators and presents a scenario based approach that helps to benchmark the relative national performance of design innovation policy. The use of a scenario based approach links available data through a narrative approach to an overall picture of the relative performance of design innovation policy at a national level. While our research has demonstrated that there are no reliable and comprehensive data sets currently available for design across Europe, we conclude with a consideration of the challenges and limitations of a scenario based approach to evaluation design innovation policy at a macro level.

Analyzing Residential Land Use Change and Population Density Considering Climate Change Using Land Use Equilibrium Model in Jeju

The greenhouse gas emission caused by rapid economic growth and population is increasing in Korea. Also, climate change from greenhouse gases emission is accelerated. IPCC(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report projects an increase of greenhouse gas emissions by 90% from the year 2000 to 2030(SRES, 2000). Within this context, establishing countermeasures on climate adaptation and mitigation is becoming increasingly important to reduce the negative effect of climate change at a global level. Along with global efforts to tackle climate change, Korean government has incorporated 'Low Carbon Green Growth'strategies into its national policy agenda. Local governments have also conducted a number of studies to devise plans for environmentally friendly and sustainable city development. In this paper, the land-use equilibrium model, which reflects economic and geographical characteristics, is used to analyze the change in residential land use and population density. The target area for study is Jeju island in Korea. With an application of land use equilibrium model, it derived three types of scenarios of the land use change: (1) dispersion scenario-reflecting present-day conditions (2) adaptation scenario-applying adaptation measures to climate change and (3) combined scenario-integrating both adaptation and mitigation measures in model to climate change. By applying dispersion to combined scenario, the general trend shows a downward shift in population density. Subsequently, energy consumption and expected cost associated with casualties were calculated on the basis of the findings of respective scenario. The results show a descending trend in energy consumption and expected casualtie. Therefore, understanding for residential land use and population density of each scenario that analyzed land use equilibrium model in the study is expected to devise a environmental city plan for climate change stabilization and climate adaptation and mitigation.

Schoolification or early years democracy? A cross-curricular perspective from Denmark and England

International comparisons strongly influence national policy agendas in the early years. However, an appreciation of details and national context and differences is imperative to promote democracy. From the perspective of a Danish social pedagogue1 lecturing in Early Childhood Studies in England, the author presents a cross-national comparison to elicit parallels and differences in discourses of democracy and schoolification within early years curriculum policies in England and Denmark. An initial discussion of democracy and schoolification leads to a consideration of the differing welfare contexts and quality assurance processes that inform the curriculum frameworks. The influence of schoolification is exemplified in a detailed analysis of the raised expectations with regard to language assessment in England and Denmark. This discussion reveals the tensions between local democratic participation in early years communities and policy agendas that emphasize preparation for school. The article explores how the limitations of a schoolification discourse, which is already dominant in England and becoming more prevalent in Denmark, potentially displacing children, parents and professionals as democratic stakeholders. The conclusion takes the form of an invitation to the early years community, locally, nationally and internationally, to find ways of developing resilience to the pressure of a neo-liberal accountability culture and external governance.

Integrated community case management for childhood illnesses: explaining policy resistance in Kenya: Table 1.

There has been a re-emphasis recently on community health workers to provide child health care services including integrated community case management for childhood illness (iCCM). This research analysed iCCM policy development in Kenya and in particular the types of decision-making criteria used by Kenyan policy-makers in considering whether to advance iCCM policy. Data were collected through document reviews (n = 41) and semi-structured interviews (n = 19) with key stakeholders in iCCM policy including government officials, development partners, bilateral donors, and civil society organizations. Initial analysis was guided by the policy triangle with further analysis of factors affecting policy decision-making drawing upon a simple framework developed by Grindle and Thomas (Policy makers, policy choices and policy outcomes: the political economy of reform in developing countries. 1989; Policy Sci 22: :213-48.). Policy development for iCCM has been slow in Kenya, compared with other Sub-Saharan African countries. At the time of the study, the Government had just completed the Community Health Training Manual which incorporated iCCM as a module, but this was the only formal expression of iCCM in Kenya. We found technical considerations, notably concerns about community health workers dispensing antibiotics to be a key factor slowing iCCM policy development, but this also overlapped with bureaucratic considerations, such as how the development of community health worker cadres may affect clinicians, as well as initial concerns about how an integrated approach might affect vertically oriented programs. International actors through agreements such as the Millennium Development Goals helped to get child survival onto the national policy agenda and such actors were active promoters of iCCM policy change. However international funders had not committed funding to scale-up iCCM policy, and this probably constrained their influence over iCCM policy debate. Kenyan actors' concerns about iCCM underline the importance of adapting global policies to local conditions, and also generating local evidence to inform decision-making.

텍스트마이닝을 활용한 미국 대통령 취임 연설문의 트렌드 연구

Identification of meaningful patterns and trends in large volumes of text data is an important task in various research areas. In the present study, we propose a procedure to find meaningful tendencies based on a combination of text mining, cluster analysis, and low-dimensional embedding. To demonstrate applicability and effectiveness of the proposed procedure, we analyzed the inaugural addresses of the presidents of the United States from 1789 to 2009. The main results of this study show that trends in the national policy agenda can be discovered based on clustering and visualization algorithms.

Medical foster care: what happens when children with medical complexity cannot be cared for by their families?

Medical interventions for life-threatening pediatric conditions often oblige ongoing and complex medical care for survivors. For some children with medical complexity, their caretaking needs outstrip their parents' resources and abilities. When this occurs, the medical foster care system can provide the necessary health care and supervision to permit these children to live outside of hospitals. However, foster children with medical complexity experience extremes of social and medical risk, confounding their prognosis and quality of life beyond that of similar children living with biologic parents. Medical foster parents report inadequate training and preparation, perpetuating these health risks. Further, critical decisions that weigh the benefits and burdens of medical interventions for these children must accommodate complicated relationships involving foster families, caseworkers, biologic families, legal consultants, and clinicians. These variables can delay and undermine coordinated and comprehensive care. To rectify these issues, medical homes and written care plans can promote collaboration between providers, families, and agencies. Pediatricians should receive specialized training to meet the unique needs of this population. National policy and research agendas could target medical and social interventions to reduce the need for medical foster care for children with medical complexity, and to improve its quality for those children who do.

Making research integral to home care services.

Home care is the fastest growing segment of the Canadian healthcare system, yet research on patient safety has been conducted predominantly in institutional settings. This is a case example of how Victorian Order of Nurses Canada, a national not-for-profit home and community care provider, embedded a nurse researcher to create an environment in which health services research flourished. This model strategically propelled important issues such as home care safety on to the national research and policy agendas and helped leverage change in multiple levels of the healthcare system. This is a call to action for building partnerships to have a researcher as an integral team member in organizations providing home care services.

Introduction of male circumcision for HIV prevention in Uganda: analysis of the policy process.

BackgroundHealth policy analysis is important for all health policies especially in fields with ever changing evidence-based interventions such as HIV prevention. However, there are few published reports of health policy analysis in sub-Saharan Africa in this field. This study explored the policy process of the introduction of male circumcision (MC) for HIV prevention in Uganda in order to inform the development processes of similar health policies.MethodologyDesk review of relevant documents was conducted between March and May 2012. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Conceptual frameworks that demonstrate the interrelationship within the policy development processes and influence of actors in the policy development processes guided the analysis.ResultsFollowing the introduction of MC on the national policy agenda in 2007, negotiation and policy formulation preceded its communication and implementation. Policy proponents included academic researchers in the early 2000s and development partners around 2007. Favourable contextual factors that supported the development of the policy included the rising HIV prevalence, adoption of MC for HIV prevention in other sub-Saharan African countries, and expertise on MC. Additionally, the networking capability of proponents facilitated the change in position of non-supportive or neutral actors. Non-supportive and neutral actors in the initial stages of the policy development process included the Ministry of Health, traditional and Muslim leaders, and the Republican President. Using political authority, legitimacy, and charisma, actors who opposed the policy tried to block the policy development process. Researchers’ initial disregard of the Ministry of Health in the research process of MC and the missing civil society advocacy arm contributed to delays in the policy development process.ConclusionsThis study underscores the importance of securing top political leadership as well as key implementing partners’ support in policy development processes. Equally important is the appreciation of the various forms of actors’ power and how such power shapes the policy agenda, development process, and content.