6.1 Understanding Evidence Cafés: migration, stakeholders and evidence

Evidence Cafés support equitable communication, focused on good quality evidence that is research- and practice-based. The Evidence Café process supports evidence from different contexts, helping to combine them and resulting in sustainable, significant and scalable impact for both practice and research. However, barriers to this can arise when there are conflicting motivations from practice and academia, especially when certain stakeholders have more power and authority to effect change. For migration issues these are significant problems, since the issues relate strongly to current government/local policies and decision making. However, without support for different stakeholders in developing a joint understanding and common goals, there will continue to be decisions made based upon poor migration evidence and a lack of research into relevant migration issues. Table 6.1 gives a review of Evidence Café roles, artefacts and activities:

Table 6.1: Roles, artefacts and activities during an Evidence Café (Clough and Adams, 2020)