Transforming knowledge into action.

Institutional Learning

26-Aug-2009 |

One of the perennial issues in the policy-making process is the role of institutional learning.

That is, once a policy has been rolled out or completed how do the outcomes of the evaluation of that process get transferred into learning for later iterations of the policy process? Nowadays we just call this organisational learning and it is a key theme across a range of sectors and disciplines. The problem though is that while people are happy to ‘talk the talk’ they’re not so happy to ‘walk the walk’.

Looking at our own practice it seems that the ‘stickiness’ of these institutions seems to preclude their ability to learn. This inability to move, in our experience, is due to individual and institutional factors including vested interests and a heavy focus on process rather than outcomes. Despite all of the changes to organisational structures over the last thirty years (private and public) there still seems to be a breakdown in taking information gleaned from evaluation and successfully transferring it in to practice.