Creating a Linkage Between Academic Research and Policy-Making

There is a consensus in literature that the process of policy-making should be based on strong evidence in order to increase quality, credibility and relevance of a policy. Academic research is one of the most important contributors to the process of collecting, analyzing and providing data for stakeholders. In this paper I analyze the relationship between research and the process of policy-making, in order to demonstrate that the latter will benefit from academic research. For this purpose, I will divide my analysis in four chapters as following: the first one will contain a short history about the moment when this problem was first brought into question and arguments about the importance of the research for policy-making process, along with the clarification of the main terms that I will use in my analysis. The second chapter will be dedicated to the main problems that both policy-makers and academic researchers faced when it comes to work together in the decision making process. In describing these constrains I will use a politician perspective as well as a researcher one. In my third chapter I emphasize some recommendations and actions that can be implemented in order to surmount the limits, and in the final chapter I will try to provide a vision upon the case of Romania and the relationship between academic research and policy-making in our country.