Governments are facing growing pressures to deliver public services to citizens in a complex, fragmented and unpredictable environment. Evidence-informed policy-making can play a crucial role in designing, implementing and delivering better public policies. However, effectively connecting evidence and policy- making remains a challenge. Institutional gaps, insufficient skills and capacity, and a lack of an effective knowledge-brokering function are common barriers to the use of evidence in policy-making. A failure to act on evidence about which polices work, which do not, and why, is an inefficient use of resources. Therefore, increasing government’s capacity for an evidence-informed approach to policy-making is an essential part of good public governance.

This report analyses the skills and capacities governments need to strengthen evidence-informed policy-making and identifies a range of possible interventions governments can use, based on country good practice. Evidence-informed policy-making can be defined as a process whereby multiple sources of information, including statistics, data and the best available research evidence and evaluations, are consulted before making a decision to plan, implement, and (where relevant) alter public policies and programmes. This report adopts a broad definition of evidence to mean a systematic investigative process to increase or revise current knowledge that encompasses policy evaluation as well as scientific investigations.

This chapter discusses the need to connect supply with demand of evidence in a complex political context characterised by a global over-supply of knowledge. The chapter discusses the contribution that evidence-informed policy-making can make to good public governance, which requires building new skills and capacity in the public sector. There is a need to address the elusive connections between evidence and policy-making, while acknowledging the importance of cognitive constraints and bias. This highlights the rationale for focusing on the demand of evidence, at the level of individual skills, as well as at the structural and organisational levels.

This chapter presents the contribution of existing work, including at the OECD, and at European level on the intersection of evidence and policy-making. It introduces the framework of skills for a high performing civil service, as well as the core skills for public sector innovation from the OECD work on public employment and on public sector innovation. It also introduces the framework for skills for evidence-informed policy-making developed by the European Commission Joint Research Centre.

This chapter underlines the fact that use of evidence, depends on capability, motivation and opportunity. It presents a core skillset for evidence-informed policy-making (EIPM) at individual level, including the capacity for understanding; obtaining; assessing; using; engaging with stakeholders; and applying evidence. The chapter also outlines the need to build capacity for EIPM at the organisational level, where capacity for evidence use can be supported or limited by resources or organisational culture. It also underlines the role of broader environmental capacity where use of evidence use can be affected by the relationship with external organisations and societal attitudes towards evidence use.

This chapter discusses the barriers and facilitators that may affect the use of evidence in policy-making, and offers a mapping of existing initiatives that seek to strengthen the EIPM skill set, in terms of understanding, obtaining, interrogating and assessing, using and applying, engaging and evaluating. It also discusses diagnostic tools to evaluate organisational capacities for EIPM and initiatives to build organisational capacities for EIPM.

This closing chapter draws the lessons of the analysis of the skills and other contributing factors to evidence-informed policy-making. It offers a number of recommendations to make the use of evidence more effective, including the need to be aware of the local and political context, the need to address the full range of skills and capacities. The recommendations also highlight the institutional and organisational structures and systems that enable effective use of evidence, as well as the role of strategic leadership and the need to embed evaluation from the beginning to inform the implementation process. The chapter also highlights potential areas for future work, including a professional development framework, as well as the need to address the impact of cognitive and motivational aspects of capacity building.