Evidence-based policy-making? The meaning of scientific knowledge in policy processes

Scientific findings are often not adopted and utilized as assumed and intended by their producers and mediators. These gaps in the uptake and use of scientific evidence induce reflections on the communication between science and its addressees in society. If politics is conceived as an addressee, could its members be identified as a target group? What are the knowledge needs of policy-makers? What do they expect not only in terms of the evidence provided, but also with regard to the role that its producers play in processes of counselling? And how do these expectations fit together with the models of counselling and communication that producers of scientific knowledge presuppose in the framework of evidence-based policy-making?