Who Gets to Choose the Evidence in Evidence-based Policy-making?

Evidence-based policy-making has long been a focus of academic debate, particularly after the UK’s New Labour government’s major policy documents during the period 1997–2007 signalled the importance of ensuring that policies were 'inclusive, fair and evidence based'. Evidence here is taken to mean expert knowledge that might favour specific policy choices. For techno-scientific issues such as product safety and future innovation, this evidence remains dependent on judgements about predictive uncertainties.

A new paper from IKD members Les Levidow and Theo Papaioannou, published in Science and Public Policy, starts from theoretical questions such as how policy-making deals with diverse evidence favouring different narratives. These questions become more specific through a case study of UK priority-setting for bioenergy innovation. Documents and interviews in a controversy over 'unsustainable biomass' are analysed to identify links between problem-diagnoses, societal visions, policy narratives and evidence-gathering.

The results suggest that evidence has been selectively generated and gathered to favour the vision of the incumbent industry, which seeks bioenergy expansion as an input-substitute within centralised energy systems, rather than the alternative from civil society organisations which promotes biomass uses for eco-decentralisation.

In addition, attributing the evidence to external expertise helps to legitimise the policy framework. The dominant narrative is further reinforced by the government’s multi-stakeholder consultation favouring incumbent industry and by incentive structures for industry co-investment, even co-decision, on priorities. The conclusion, then, is that expert evidence-gathering depends on policy assumptions and wider narratives.

Read full article: Policy-driven, Narrative-based Evidence-gathering: UK Priorities for Decarbonisation through Biomass.