Policy briefs are short documents that present the findings and recommendations of a research project to a non-specialist reader- ship. They are often recommended as a key tool for communicating research findings to policy actors (Young and Quinn, 2007). However, there has been little systematic research in the development field about the communication needs of developing country policy-makers and how such research can be used to inform policy brief content and design. This back- ground note presents recent research by the Research and Policy in Development (RAPID) Group at ODI and the Science and Development Network (SciDev.Net) on the research communication environment involving researchers, policy-makers and development practi- tioners from the North and South in science, technol- ogy and innovation.

Title: Policy briefs as a communication tool for development research Author: Nicola Jones & Cora Walsh Year: 2008