PUTTING RESEARCH INTO PRACTICE: EXPLORING THE INHERENT CHALLENGES OF RESEARCH UPTAKE IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT FACULTIES IN GHANA

Abstract

Existing literature on Research Uptake (RU) have focused on exploring communication gaps between researchers and the audience. Unfortunately, the review of literature points to the dearth of research studies on Research Uptake within the Built Environment (BE). Recent studies have concentrated on improving uptake strategies neglecting the challenges of RU. The resolution of such challenges will inevitably facilitate the uptake of research. This paper aims to explore the inherent challenges of research uptake in the Built Environment faculties. A structured questionnaire survey was used to elicit perceptions of Researchers on the challenges identified from literature and the preliminary survey. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics (mean score ranking) to examine the severity of the challenges. The findings of the study revealed that lack of resources, policymakers’ perception about research and lack of collaborative research are the main challenges to research uptake in the Built Environment faculties in Ghana. Subsequently, the Kruskal-Wallis Test was used to compare the scores on the main challenges across the various department. It revealed that there is a difference in the challenge pertaining to policymakers’ perception about research. However, the difference in the other main challenges proved to be statistically insignificant. The challenges presented indicate that research in the Built Environment needs intense management and resources intervention to facilitate its uptake with demonstrated outcome benefits. This study provides rich insights of the challenges to the uptake of research in the Built Environment. Little study in the literature has provided such insights that link the challenges to the uptake of research in the Built Environment. The findings from the research would be of significance to both researchers, policymakers, advocates and potential policy beneficiaries, among others. Further research is recommended to examine the challenges from the perspective of policymakers.