Research use in practice: cyclical knowledge integration among civil servants

Abstract This qualitative study investigates how individual civil servants integrate research into different tasks conducted in Norwegian ministries. Through twenty-three in-depth interviews, supported by observant participation and document analysis, the study concludes that tasks are an overlooked key to better understanding research use practices in policy development. Civil servants integrate research into tasks through transfer, translation, and transformation. Then, every finished document is included in the organization’s reservoir of knowledge and may later be re-used for its content. Three task characteristics—complexity, time, and political involvement—are found to influence the distribution between the integration processes. The study presents a new task-related knowledge integration cycle, contributing novel and nuanced understandings of the iterative nature of research use.