Facilitating Change

Briefs are important communication tools for linking research findings to policy and practice — and ultimately affecting change. Because face it: in the attention economy no one has time to read the full report. Here’s a template we’ve developed at the Technology & Social Change Group for writing a research brief.

Tips before you begin:

• The reader should be able to get the gist of your findings and their implications from reading the title and summary. Since every word counts, so you’ll need to do some careful wordsmithing, writing and re-writing these a few times. You may want to do this part last.
• Language should balance precision and accessibility. Use plain English, avoiding jargon and acronyms. Define obscure terms and explain complex concepts.
• Your research abstract (in the front matter — topic for another post) is a good place to start because you’ve already had to think through what’s most important.
• Remember the purpose: To enable independent, rigorous research to guide policy and practice.
• Briefs are also intended to promote dissemination/downloads of the full research paper and to promote our work.

Format

Two-sided 8.5×11-inch paper. Easy to print from typical black-and-white office printer. Maximum 1000 words.

Topic

Main topic. One or two words. Ideally this should map to your core research areas. Examples: Public Access, Employability, Youth, Disabilities

Country/Region

Insert geographic region

Title

A short, pithy title (8-12 words).

Summary

One or two sentences with main takeaway message: the “so what?” — no more than 30 words.

Background

Describe the social or economic challenge. Tell us about the context. If applicable, describe the program(s). What are we trying to achieve?

Research Design

Describe the methodology, number of people in sample, limitations, etc.

Findings

Summarize your most important findings. Include at least one chart or graph to illustrate. Qualitative research can be illustrated with quotes.

So what?

Policy, program, or research implications. This is the most important section of the brief. What do these findings mean for people making policy or funding decisions? For folks designing programs targeting similar populations? For researchers investigating similar topics or considering using a similar methodology? How can your research make a difference?

Source

Insert the name of the full publication and where folks can get it.

Example:

Pal, J., Freistadt, J., Frix, M., & Neff, P. 2009. Technology for employability in Latin America: Research with at-risk youth & people with disabilities. Seattle: Technology & Social Change Group, University of Washington.

Download the full publication at tascha.washington.edu.

Sponsors

Include sponsor information. After all, it was pretty nice of them to give you all of those thousands (or millions!) of dollars to ask important questions and hang out with cool people. If research is part of a specific project include a sentence or two on that.

Example:

This research was supported by a grant from Microsoft Community Affairs under the Unlimited Potential Community Technology Skills Program.

The Technology & Social Change Group

Include your organizational boilerplate. Here’s ours:

The Technology & Social Change Group (TASCHA) at the University of Washington Information School explores the design, use, and effects of information and communication technologies in communities facing social and economic challenges. Active in over 40 countries, TASCHA brings together a multidisciplinary network of social scientists, engineers, and development practitioners to conduct research, advance knowledge, create public resources, and improve policy and program design. Our purpose? To spark innovation and create more opportunities for those who need it most. To learn more visit tascha.washington.edu.

Copyright & Creative Commons

Make it easy for others to promote and build on your work. Open research rocks! Here’s what we use:

©2009 University of Washington. All rights reserved. The content if this report is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. If you wish to use any of this content please contact us at tascha@uw.edu.

Let me know how this works for you and if you have any questions. Samples would also be cool — I’ll add them here. Or you can leave a comment and email me the file to add to your comment.