Regularly, doubts about the independence of research leads to heated discussion. This is especially true if things have gone wrong. This issue explores the question how research organizations and researchers can defend themselves against improper influence: the conscious and active pursuit of too positive research results by commissioners or government officials. This article outlines a number of dimensions of how establishing good, independent research can be structured in a systematic and sensible manner. Independent inquiry manifests itself in position, judgment, and appearance or image. Institutional safeguards form the basis for professional roles and responsibilities that can fulfill the requirements of independent research in the political arena.

If the stakes are high, policy researchers can find themselves under strong pressures from politicians or policy makers to compromise on issues like scope of a research project, research methodology, reporting, framing and interpretation of results, and timing of publication. Research organizations experiment with various formal and informal arrangements to cope with such pressures and guard their independence.
This article describes six coping strategies that are being explored by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL). These are: i) taking control in determining the project scope and the research questions; ii) making responsibilities explicit and guarding respective roles; iii) installing a broad based societal project advisory group; iv) having some researchers in a project that interact with stakeholders, while keeping others at a distance; v) having a differentiated communications strategy; vi) being fully transparent as to hypotheses and uncertainties regarding data and models.
Safeguarding independence in research through formal rules and provisions is generally insufficient to protect research from undue stakeholder influence. Also changes in labor routines, relationship management and organizational cultures are needed, not only on the researcher side, but on the stakeholder side as well. This calls for dialogue and joint learning processes.

In several regions in the Netherlands there are declining population numbers. In those regions, administrators, companies and societal organisations often start regional collaborations in order to anticipate population decline and maintain a good quality of life. This is a logical step, but in practice the collaborating partners face challenges. For this article we analysed over a period of eight years the dynamics of cooperation in the Hoeksche Waard, a region in the province of South Holland that is dealing with a decrease in the number of inhabitants. On the basis of the regime model (Stone 1989), and by conducting qualitative research, in this exploratory study we discerned a paradox of regional cooperation in this ‘shrinking’ region: a decline of population numbers is the reason to initiate informal cooperation in networks, but the complexity of the regional agenda leads to the desire for formalisation of the collaborations in formal decision making structures. This formalisation, in its turn, leads to less commitment from the parties and makes cooperation and achieving results difficult, which increases the need for informalisation.

Een lerende evaluatie combineert leren en verantwoorden. Deze methode past bij complexe beleidsopgaven, waar meerdere actoren en overheden bij betrokken zijn die een behoefte hebben om te leren van elkaars ervaringen. In de evaluatie van het Natuurpact is deze methode op nationale schaal voor het gedecentraliseerde natuurbeleid toegepast. Uit deze casus blijkt dat een succesvolle toepassing vraagt om een voortdurende en zorgvuldige aansluiting van het onderzoek op de beleidspraktijk. Dit is nodig voor het betrekken van en interactie met stakeholders, het combineren van leren en verantwoorden, de wetenschappelijke onafhankelijkheid, het bestuurlijk mandaat en de beheersbaarheid van het onderzoek.

In the near future a growing number of Dutch regions and municipalities will experience a decline in population and household numbers. However, compared with other countries, the impending population shrinkage in the Netherlands will be modest, if not insignificant. The spatial consequences of this demographic decline will be limited. Other factors, such as economic growth, behavioural change and spatial planning policy, will have a more important influence on spatial development. The fixation on population numbers in both the public debate about demographic decline and in policy-making is therefore misplaced and futile. Insofar as demographic trends already have an influence on spatial developments, it is primarily through changes in household numbers and population composition, for example in relation to housing needs. This does not mean that demographic decline will not raise issues pertinent to spatial development policy. In municipalities and regions, falling household numbers may push up housing vacancy rates and exacerbate segregation, leading to a reduction in the quality of the living environment. These negative consequences will be concentrated in specific districts, neighbourhoods and villages. Demographic decline is not only a threat; it also presents opportunities. In regions currently suffering from serious housing shortages, a shrinking number of households will relieve pressure on the housing market. In addition, contraction of local and regional populations will open up opportunities for reducing densities and 'greening' these neighbourhoods. When anticipating or responding to demographic decline, local and regional governments mainly adopt a strategy of improving the quality of the housing stock and stimulating employment. In both cases, there is a danger of competition between local authorities (or regions and provinces), which may lead to uneconomic spatial investments and irreversible spatial developments.