Most people believe that if a study proves something works, the system will change. That is not how it goes. We live in a country where the machinery of research is world-class, but the machinery of implementation is largely improvised.
Brilliant people generate important findings. But the policies those findings should inform rarely shift in response. This is not a failure of evidence. It is a failure of infrastructure.
There is a widespread assumption that good ideas will naturally scale. That promising pilots will become permanent programs. That policymakers and practitioners are reading the same journals as the researchers.
What we actually have is a system where research lives in one world and public delivery lives in another. The bridge between them is fragile, temporary, or missing entirely.
To be fair, there are models that try to solve this. The SBIR and STTR programs are good examples. They fund innovation and give it room to breathe. These programs recognize that applied research needs structured support, especially when it moves from lab to market. They are not perfect, but they point in the right direction. They acknowledge the gap and offer a pathway across.
What we need more broadly is something like a civic deployment stack. A way of treating research the way we treat software: modular, testable, forkable, and constantly refined with real users in mind.
In the world of code, version control is expected. In the world of public systems, it is rare.
Imagine if every health equity study came with a version history, a local implementation guide, and a team that could monitor fidelity on the ground. Imagine if we built research into programs the way we build blueprints into buildings, with engineers on site and not just in the office.
This is not just about policy. It is about humility. It is about the idea that the space between a good idea and a working system is full of invisible labor. That labor deserves real support.
If your organization funds research or tries to turn research into reality, ask yourself this:
Where is your infrastructure for follow-through?
Because good ideas are not in short supply. The infrastructure to carry them is.