Science, technology and innovation (STI) policy research comprises heterogeneous set of activities undertaken by a community of diverse actors. The goal of the STI policy community is to conduct research to understand effective policies for STI and then contribute to the public or private sector. In order to understand whether or not STI policy research contributes to the benefit of government, this study selects the UK as the case study and investigates ways of linking STI policy research to government policy practice and proposes a three-step linking mechanism, i.e. 1) knowledge creation, 2) dissemination of research and 3) making contribution to policy practice. The mechanism facilitates linking from STI policy research communities to policy practice. Each of the steps is empirically analyzed by comparing two famous cases, UK Technology Foresight and Technopolis, in order to identify determinants of STI policy research communities making contributions to government policy practice.