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...

This was the question behind a recent Wellbeing Roundtable held in Belfast. Input from a range of senior policy makers from across the UK suggested that it can, or at least, it could. Internationally, policy makers...

In this blog Howard White, co-chair of the Campbell Collaboration, shares his perspective from the international development sector that, as is often the case for those working at the local and national level, continuity is the...

This new paper from the Alliance argues that governments need to adopt an experimental ethos. What does this mean? It means systematically testing out policies on a smaller scale so that impact can be measured, successes replicated...

Building on the increased profile of evidence in policymaking, Sense About Science have launched their Evidence Matters campaign. In this blog Prateek Buch, policy director of the campaign, explains how it will celebrate good uses of...

Nesta has put evidence at the heart of its grant making decisions, writes Vicki Sellick, Director of Nesta’s Centre for Social Action Innovation Fund. In doing so they’re supporting grantees to develop and improve their ability to...

Conversations about evidence base policy often treat RCTs and big data as mutually exclusive but there is no good reason to do so, writes Michael Sanders, Head of Policy Research at the Behavioural Insights Team. By...

Hetan Shah, Executive Director of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), introduces the RSS’ Data Manifesto. Calling for evidence, and offical statistics to be at the heart of policy making and policy debates, the Manifesto argues for...

Numbers, argues Professor Trish Greenhalgh, are no more ‘factual’ than stories. The dichotomy between numbers and stories is false, writes Greenhalgh, instead we should recognise that both can be selected and moulded with the aim of...

An open invitation has gone out for comments on the ‘strength’ of the Department for Education’s evidence. Jonathan Breckon, Head of the Alliance for Useful Evidence, explores how the ‘strength’ of evidence can be judged and...

  What is the beating heart of a healthy evidence ecosystem? Professor Jonathan Shepherd finds that systems work best when practitioner vocation to improve services coalesces with the capacity to test solutions in rigorous experiments. This...

  Jonathan Breckon, Head of the Alliance for Useful Evidence and joint author of the new report ‘The NICE Way: Lessons for social policy and practice from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’, sets...