We live in an era where trust in political institutions is low and declining. It has been suggested that this lack of trust extends to experts too. For too long evidence has been seen as the...

A growing wariness between what is fact and what is fiction in recent years has been highlighted by increased political polarisation, a fractured media and the accelerated pace of technological change. The Evidence Initiative, the recently launched...

This week marks International Open Access Week 2018. At the Alliance for Useful Evidence, we’re big supporters of the principles behind the open access (OA) movement: scholarly research should be available to everyone, not just to...

For the third time, the Alliance for Useful Evidence is pleased to be partnering with the Political Studies Association on their Annual Awards, to celebrate the successful use of evidence in policy-making. Nominations are now open...

Changing the way that decision-makers engage with evidence is no easy task. For all our efforts, making high quality evidence available and accessible often just isn’t enough. What motivates a politician to commission a review, or...

When government implements far-reaching policies whilst ignoring the evidence there can be catastrophic consequences, writes Geoff Mulgan (Nesta). Private finance initiatives (PFIs) and public-private partnerships (PPPs) are in the spotlight again thanks to the collapse of...

Evidence should be more than a footnote in the revamped Ministerial Code, says David Walker, contributing editor for Guardian Public and chair of the ESRC’s Understanding Society board. Theresa May has revamped the Ministerial Code, the mini-bible...

Kerstin Hinds (Office for Statistics Regulation) on why the misuse of statistics must be challenged, to ensure that official figures can be used, and trusted, by us all. I am writing 10 days after our Chair,...

Professor Leighton Andrews (former Minister for Education and Skills, and Minister for Public Services, Welsh Government) on why it’s important that we combat the proliferation of ‘fake news’ and how it could be done. There has...

So the temptation is just to plough on. Keep calm, ignore the Trump and Brexit tumults, and carry on proselytising for evidence. Perhaps eventually things will calm down. But they won’t. Whatever you think about the...

Academic institutions are producing high quality, highly trusted social science data but this isn’t always translated into policy and practice. Why are universities not having the impact on social policy that we might expect? How can universities...

  The ONS is piloting the use of new data sources such as social media in the census, writes Jason Leavey. But don’t expect changes to be implemented anytime soon. The Office for National Statistics could incorporate...

Robert G. Picard explains how new visualisation techniques can aid our understanding of complex data. Large-scale and complex data create challenges for businesses, government, and civil society organisations to act upon and is now leading scholars...

The post-mortem on the UK’s General Election continues. Sue Littlemore, Chief Executive of the Education Media Centre and former BBC Education Correspondent, found that politicians ignored research, but journalists were interested in finding evidence. Learning lessons from...

Across the world there are increasing calls for evidence to play a greater role in government policy. In the US, Results for America are leading the rallying cry. In this blog, Michele Jolin, their CEO and...