Il professore e il dirigente: relazioni fra ricerca accademica e processo delle politiche pubbliche con particolare rifermento alla dirigenza della scuola nazionale dell’amministrazione

The thesis tries to give an answer to the question about the impact academic research might produce on the learning processes of bureaucracy in decision making of policies. It also tries to understand in and how policies are built and implemented on the basis of research. We know that effective public policies should rest on academic results: nevertheless what academics offer do not always matches what policy makers (politicians and bureaucrats) need. Many research dimensions are considered, taking into account the relations between those which literature named the two communities of policy makers and academics (including divisions between politicians and bureaucrats into the decision makers community). The analysis of the peculiar Italian situation is also taken into account: in order to define the decision making community we have chosen the subset of senior civil servants (dirigenti pubblici) from central government, represented by the 561 alumni of the National Institute for Public Administration (SNA, Scuola Nazionale dell’Amministrazione). They were asked to respond to a questionnaire, similar to the one prepared for the “Sir Humphrey and the Professors: what does Whitehall want from academics? A survey of senior civil servants’ views on the accessibility and utility of academic research and expertise”, research by Talbot and Talbot (2014). In that study the survey considered the UK SCSs on the accessibility and utility of academic research and expertise. 7 We have had an almost 40% responses by the Italian SCSs and results show that they have a basically positive approach to academic research and its relevance for the activities of policy process, asking for a concrete, understandable and timely support. Those evidences are mostly similar to the ones offered by the UK survey, though in the latter SCSs show tendency to a more pragmatic approach. It is a positive signal, needing for further research to clarify whether it is an attitude from SNA alumni only – that seems reasonable because of the particular track they have followed – or it can be extended to the whole of SCSs, and id and how the role of governments as facilitators of the dialogue between the two communities could be developed