COVID-19 has rapidly and radically reshaped interactions between academics and policymakers and the kinds of evidence being used to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this post, Vivian Tseng, considers how research-policy relationships might develop in the short, medium to long term and how research funders might seize opportunities presented by COVID-19 to design equity-centred … Continued
Category: Evidence-based Policy
The civil service doesn’t just need more scientists – it needs a decision-making revolution
In the UK, the election of a new government has seen a renewed focus on research policy and the use of evidence in policymaking. In this repost, David Rose, Mark Burgman and William Sutherland, draw on their experiecnces of working within different government departments, to consider how evidence is currently used by the civil service and to set out an … Continued
To improve the global evidence ecosystem we need to listen to the Global South.
Drawing on their recent study of South Africa’s evidence ecosystem, Ruth Stewart, Harsha Dayal, Laurenz Langer and Carina van Rooyen, show how the global north has much to learn from evidence ecosystems in the global south. Outlining five lessons that can be learnt from the South African evidence ecosystem, they argue that if notions of … Continued
2019 In Review: Research on Research
2019 has seen an increased focus on the ways in which different national and international research systems function and how they can be improved. This post brings together some of the top posts on the theme of research on research that have featured on the LSE Impact Blog during 2019. Pushing research to the limit – Who innovates in social […]
Legislative science advice is a powerful tool, yet the majority of parliamentarians around the world don’t have access to it
The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) has played an important role in UK politics, by providing horizon scanning research summaries to parliamentarians on emerging issues. Here, Sarah Foxen and Chris Tyler discuss the challenges and opportunities faced in setting up services that put leading edge research in front of busy politicians and reflect on their work to help set up […]
If we’re serious about changing the world, we need to get our evidence right – A comment on the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics.
The announcement of this year’s Nobel Prize in economics has highlighted divisions within the development economics community, particularly around the efficacy of using Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) as a tool for making social interventions. In this post Gorgi Krlev discusses the pros and cons of experimental approaches in economics and suggests that rather than seeing routes to delivering social change as […]
Who are stakeholders in research? A Science and Technology Studies approach to navigating research impact
The early engagement of ‘stakeholders’ in research is often presented as a simple way to ensure that research is aligned to the needs of research users and therefore impactful. However, who these stakeholders are and what their interests might be is not always obvious. In this post Robert Borst and Annette Boaz reflect on their research on stakeholder engagement as part of a larger European […]
Book Review: What Works Now? Evidence-informed Policy and Practice edited by Annette Boaz, Huw Davies, Alec Fraser and Sandra Nutley
In What Works Now? Evidence-informed Policy and Practice, Annette Boaz, Huw Davies, Alec Fraser and Sandra Nutley offer both a synthesis and critique of the rapidly evolving field of evidence-informed policy and practice. William Solesbury praises the timeliness, breadth and clarity of the collection. This post originally appeared on LSE Review of Books. If you would like to contribute to the series, please contact the managing editor of LSE Review […]
Book Review: Think Tanks: The New Knowledge and Policy Brokers in Asia by James G. McGann
In Think Tanks: The New Knowledge and Policy Brokers in Asia, James G. McGann examines the role of think tanks in Asia, exploring their current limitations as well as how they can expand and improve the quality of their analysis to provide the region’s political actors with the policy advice they require. While the book contains the seeds of a compelling and informative […]
Evidence matters, but ideas shape policy in more fundamental ways than we might realise
Evidence-based policy-making can be problematic in practice, especially if the evidence is uncertain. Based on a case study concerning the formation of a national-level policy position in Ireland in response to an EU initiative, Niamh Hardiman and Saliha Metinsoy suggest that policy makers’ decisions may well be guided by beliefs that go beyond the direct evidence available. Ideas can be so deep-rooted that they […]