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Abstract Background Implementing research findings into healthcare policy is an enduring challenge made even more difficult when policies must be developed and implemented with the help and support of multiple ideas, agendas and actors taking part in determinants of health. Only looking at mechanisms to feed policy-makers with evidence or to interest researchers in the policy process will simply bring partial clues; implementing evidence-based policy also requires organisations to lead and to partner in the production and intake of scientific evidence from academics and practical evidence from one another. Main body This Commentary argues for the need to better understand the capacities required by organisations to foster evidence-based policy in a dispersed environment. It proposes a framework of 11 brokering capacities for organisations involved in evidence-based policy. Eight of these capacities are informed by streams of research related to the roles of knowledge broker, innovation broker and policy broker. Three complementary brokering capacities are informed by our experience studying real-life evidence-based policies; these are capturing boundary knowledge, trending know-how on scientific and practical evidence-based policy, and conveying evidence outward. Conclusions Previous guidelines on brokering capacities focused on the individual level more than on the organisational level. Beyond the individual capacities of managers, designers and implementers of new policies, there is a need to identify and assess the brokering capacities of organisations involved in evidence-based policy. The three specific organisational brokering capacities for evidence-based policy that we present offer a means for policy-makers and policy designers to reflect upon favourable environments for evidence-based policy. These capacities could also help administrators and implementation scholars to think about and develop measurements to assess the quality and readiness of organisations involved in evidence-based policy design.

Growing bodies of research in the social sciences point to politicians, bureaucratic officials, interest groups, and other actors who serve as policy entrepreneurs. In this paper, we argue that private citizens can also serve a primary role as policy entrepreneurs. To analyze this phenomenon, we investigate the behavior of private citizens and their role in changing state policies surrounding insurance mandates for autism coverage. Using a thematic analysis of focus groups and interviews conducted with individuals active in the push for autism policy change, we demonstrate that private citizens meet all of the requirements identified for policy entrepreneurs in the existing literature. We then investigate when, why, and how these private citizens step forward into the policy process as entrepreneurs. We show that entrepreneurship occurs when private citizens have needed resources, a sense of duty to fix a policy status quo they see as unjust, and a stake in policy change. We conclude by discussing the importance of our findings to the study of public policy and their generalizability beyond autism policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ken Mathers, long-time roads bureaucrat in the Victoria Public Service, has been a uniquely influential figure on the state's transport scene since the late 1990s. His projects have dominated the agenda, sometimes against the initial misgivings of the governments he served. This article argues we can explain Mathers' influence in terms of policy entrepreneurship. It will show that, contrary to the dominant view in recent scholarship, transport policymaking in Victoria is sufficiently messy that an entrepreneur like Mathers could shift the agenda to get his projects up, looking in particular detail at the case of the now-infamous East-West Link. Finally, examining the failure of East–West, it will suggest some doubts about whether we can really expect entrepreneurs to wrangle all the relevant political actors, and whether they are in fact as central to policy change as the theory leads us to think. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can a non-powerful minority in the policymaking process realise its preferred policy? To answer this question, this research applies the 'advocacy coalition framework' (ACF), which emphasises contestation among groups with different belief systems (advocacy coalitions: ACs). By examining the case of self-sufficiency organisations under the public assistance scheme in South Korea (hereafter, Korea), this research argues that, even though it is a minority third-party, an AC (in this research, advocates of the social economy (SE)) can promote its favoured policy as a policy solution to a conflict between two mutually-contending major ACs (in this research, productivists and advocates of social citizenship). This research contributes practically to studies of the SE by showing how contemporary social economy organisations (SEOs) can be promoted on alien soil. The research also contributes theoretically to the ACF by adding to it a third-party minority AC's possible role as a policy entrepreneur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The academic literature has recently started to underscore that the capacity of a policy entrepreneur is not only determined by his conditions as an agent but also by the context in which he/she operates. This article develops a conceptual framework to analyze this kind of context. To test this framework, we develop a qualitative comparative analysis between two policy fields: police and education in Uruguay (2010-2020). These cases offer a fruitful comparison to demonstrate the relevance of context to explain the probability of success of policy entrepreneurs with ambitious reform agendas. In the police sector, we show how the political entrepreneur managed to be successful as an agent of reform due to a series of contextual aspects that were favorably conjugated. In the education sector, this research identified several institutional and political factors that quickly conspired against the possibility to promote change, despite the presence of a reformist policy entrepreneur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of Chief Executive Officers as leaders of educational service providers is positioned in multi academy trusts, the preferred structure of schooling in England. Within this structure, the Chief Executive Officer position is distinct and different from previous constructs of headteachers, since the Chief Executive operates at both street level, that is within the MAT, and beyond 'the street'. In this article, I argue that a new conceptualisation of the headteacher is needed to explain the emerging position and practices of the Chief Executive Officer. These include the interface with the market, adopting entrepreneurial dispositions and constructing professional and business networks. I typologise these practices and positioning through the analysis of empirical data gathered from the Leadership of the Lawrence Trust Project and its Chief Executive Officer, KT Edwards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The Office of Living Victoria (OLV), was established in 2011 by the then Liberal-National Party Coalition Government. It was created in response to a water crisis and intended to revolutionise water management and delivery, challenging established authorities and practices consolidated under the previous Labor government in Victoria. There was a decidedly partisan motivation for its conception. The drive for new ideas and innovation created opportunities for policy entrepreneurs who won the competition against more conventional research advocacy, and determined the agenda of the new agency, in the process curbing an existing policy network. Yet within a short period, this initiative was mired in scandal, and ended in 2014 having failed to achieve its purposes. This article explores this instance of policy failure, assessing the policy trajectory of the OLV in relation to the concepts of partisanship, policy entrepreneurship, and policy networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is increasing interest in the role of agency in policy processes for creating effective change. In this paper I explore the critical role of policy entrepreneurs in both creating and capitalising on windows of opportunity through creative framing of issues. I combine Kingdon's multiple streams framework of the policy, problem and politics streams with the three types of social movement framing – diagnostic, prognostic and motivational – to analyse a case study of pragmatic and innovative policymaking in Australian Indigenous policy. I find that pragmatic policy entrepreneurs used framing to actively refine available policy solutions, particularly in response to structural barriers, and played an active role in brokering the problem in ways to make it politically acceptable. This confirms the importance of ideational processes, and the critical role of framing, in creating windows of opportunity for significant reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both policy entrepreneur and policy implementer play critical roles in the policy process. Little attention has been devoted to how the identity overlap may influence policy change. This paper addresses this gap using a case-study approach and explores the vertical-greening policymaking in Shanghai (1992–2016), China. Three conclusions are advanced. The identity of policy implementer prompts entrepreneurial tactics to remove the implementation barriers. The discrepancy in perception of the policy-goal ambiguity between the policy implementer and policymaker may compromise policy adoption. The dual identity does not prevent the policy entrepreneur from accepting compromises in order to have the policy passed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kingdon's framework has limited power to explain policy changes in the Global South. By investigating Thai cases, cultural and organisational conditions are found to play an important role in creating opportunities for policy entrepreneurship and in the successful formation and implementation of inter-local collaboration policy. The strong hierarchical social system prevalent in Thai culture caused the mayors of powerful councils to perceive themselves as the benevolent brother, with a responsibility to help those with limited resources to enhance their service-delivery capabilities. Hence, they played entrepreneurial roles to form collaboration. Then, they play managerial roles to sustain and push forward it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In a recently published IJHPR article, Cohen and Horev ask whether an individual who holds rightful governmental power is able to effectively “challenge the equilibrium” in ways that might “clash with the goals” of an influential group”. This question is raised within the context of a shift in governmental policy that imposed the potential for cost management by HMOs acting as financial intermediaries for pediatric dental care in an effort to provide Israeli children better access to affordable dental care. The influential group referred to consists of Israel’s private dentists and the individual seeking to challenge the equilibrium was an Israeli Minister of Health whom the authors consider to be a policy entrepreneur. The Israeli health care system is similar to that of the United States in that private benefit plans and self-pay financing dominate in dental care. This is in contrast to the substantial role of government in the financing and regulation of medical care in both countries (with Israel having universal coverage financed by government and the US having government financing the care of the elderly and the poor as well as providing subsidies through the tax system for the care of most other Americans). Efforts to expand governmental involvement in dental care in both countries have either been opposed by organized dentistry or have suffered from ineffective advocacy for increased public investment in dental care. In the U.S., philanthropic foundations have acted as or have supported health policy entrepreneurs. The recent movement to introduce the dental therapist, a type of allied dental professional trained to provide a narrow set of commonly-needed procedures, to the U.S. is discussed as an example of a successful challenge to the equilibrium by groups supported by these foundations. This is a somewhat different, and complementary, model of policy entrepreneurship from the individual policy entrepreneur highlighted in the Cohen-Horev paper. The political traction gained to change the equilibrium favored by organized dentistry – in both Israel and the U.S. - may reflect aspirations for care that is more accessible, patient-centered, accountable and equitable. Evolving aspirations may lead to policy changes to systematize the disparate, disaggregated dental care delivery system in both counties. A change in payment incentives to provide more value is being explored for medical care, and its expansion to dental care can be anticipated to be among the policies considered in the future.

While many studies have focused on the European Commission and its potential to act as a policy entrepreneur, little research has been undertaken into how intergovernmental institutions as a whole are able to shape and advocate certain policies. This article fills that gap by analysing debates in the Council of the European Union on two major strategies: the Small Business Act for Europe and the Europe 2020 strategy. These debates were analysed using newspaper articles in the daily bulletins of Agence Europe, yielding 469 statements which were qualitatively evaluated by means of content analysis. The results demonstrate that the Council as a whole is able to act as a policy entrepreneur if certain conditions are met, namely a common interest and political goal among member states, a need for economic measures due to a crisis situation, and the possibility of shifting unpopular decisions to Brussels.