Our research process

Our research philosophy leans heavily toward an open research model. This can be seen in our progressive publication approach, including multiple windows where we seek and adopt feedback. This philosophy allows the headline issues and understanding of those issues to emerge in an open manner. We do this because we see the primary purpose of the research we undertake being to influence practice in an actionable manner. Therefore, involvement of practitioners along the research pathway is critical.

Our research process

What can you expect from our outputs?

Blog post: Our blog posts are typically written based on the observation of an issue or phenomena that we have seen. Blog posts are non-scientific, designed to prompt thinking and discussion, and support the refinement process of issues.

Research brief: Our research briefs either follow a blog post or come as a result of input from our network and the cash, banking and payments community. Research briefs move us toward the development of hypotheses and research questions, and begin to capture observable data and existing research.

Position paper: Our position papers draw from our industry expertise and are designed to put a position forward to the industry on a particular topic. They will typically draw from available data and supportable observations. The role of the position paper is to spotlight a flaw or a challenge and to put potential solutions on the table. Position papers are more oriented around practice than research.

Issues paper: Our issues papers draw from earlier publications around an issue, or can come directly from discussions with our network and the cash, banking and payments community. Issues papers support the specific crafting of research questions with clear hypotheses, and reference observable data, phenomena or existing research.

Research report: Our research reports are based around a rigorous research process. Generally drawing from prior publications to inform our hypotheses and research questions, research reports capture substantive known data and research, and contribute new data, analysis or understanding. Our research reports are typically practitioner-oriented to support acting on research.

Partnered research

We do undertake research requested by partners, typically as part of a funded or sponsored model. We adopt a similarly rigorous approach to preparation of our research reports in these models, notably including early testing of the issues and hypotheses. However depending on the scope of the research these earlier testings may not be published separately.

Would you like to talk to us about research?​

If you would like to talk to us about a project or about research collaboration, reach out and we will arrange a time to meet and discuss further.